diff --git a/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/AutocompleteController.java b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/AutocompleteController.java
index 1c42329d4..4afc67a54 100644
--- a/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/AutocompleteController.java
+++ b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/AutocompleteController.java
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ import freemarker.template.Configuration;
  * through a Lucene search. 
  */
 
-public class AutocompleteController extends FreemarkerHttpServlet implements Searcher{
+public class AutocompleteController extends BaseSearchController implements Searcher{
 
     private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
     private static final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(AutocompleteController.class);
@@ -282,12 +282,7 @@ public class AutocompleteController extends FreemarkerHttpServlet implements Sea
         // of wildcard and non-wildcard queries. The query will look have only an implicit disjunction
         // operator: e.g., +(name:tales name:tales*)
         try {
-            // Prevent org.apache.lucene.queryParser.ParseException: 
-            // Cannot parse 'mary *': '*' or '?' not allowed as first character in WildcardQuery     
-            // The * is redundant in this case anyway, so just remove it.
-            log.debug("Query string is '" + querystr + "'");
-            querystr = querystr.replaceAll("([\\s^])[?*]", "$1");
-            log.debug("Cleaned query string is '" + querystr + "'");
+            querystr = cleanQueryString(querystr);
 
             log.debug("Adding non-wildcard query for " + querystr);
             Query query = parser.parse(querystr);  
diff --git a/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/BaseSearchController.java b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/BaseSearchController.java
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..055baa551
--- /dev/null
+++ b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/BaseSearchController.java
@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+/* $This file is distributed under the terms of the license in /doc/license.txt$ */
+
+package edu.cornell.mannlib.vitro.webapp.search.controller;
+
+import org.apache.commons.logging.Log;
+import org.apache.commons.logging.LogFactory;
+
+import edu.cornell.mannlib.vitro.webapp.controller.freemarker.FreemarkerHttpServlet;
+
+public class BaseSearchController extends FreemarkerHttpServlet {
+
+    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
+    private static final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(AutocompleteController.class);
+    
+    protected String cleanQueryString(String querystr) {
+        log.debug("Query string is '" + querystr + "'");
+
+        // Prevent org.apache.lucene.queryParser.ParseException: 
+        // Cannot parse 'mary *': '*' or '?' not allowed as first character in WildcardQuery     
+        // The * is redundant in this case anyway, so just remove it.
+        querystr = querystr.replaceAll("([\\s^])[?*]", "$1");
+        
+        log.debug("Cleaned query string is '" + querystr + "'");           
+        return querystr;
+    }
+}
diff --git a/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/FreemarkerPagedSearchController.java b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/FreemarkerPagedSearchController.java
index 380da7cfe..4fc8d585f 100644
--- a/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/FreemarkerPagedSearchController.java
+++ b/webapp/src/edu/cornell/mannlib/vitro/webapp/search/controller/FreemarkerPagedSearchController.java
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@ import freemarker.template.Configuration;
  * Rewritten to use Freemarker: rjy7
  *
  */
-public class FreemarkerPagedSearchController extends FreemarkerHttpServlet implements Searcher {
+public class FreemarkerPagedSearchController extends BaseSearchController implements Searcher {
 
     private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
     private static final Log log = LogFactory.getLog(FreemarkerPagedSearchController.class.getName());
@@ -524,6 +524,8 @@ public class FreemarkerPagedSearchController extends FreemarkerHttpServlet imple
                 return null;
             }               
             QueryParser parser = getQueryParser(analyzer);
+            
+            querystr = cleanQueryString(querystr);
             query = parser.parse(querystr);
 
             String alpha = request.getParameter("alpha");