Help

Simple Search

A simple search from the homepage will search all of the available collections,merge the results and rank them according to how relevant they are to your query. To conduct a Simple Search:
  • Type in your keyword(s), like "deep web technologies" and select Search.  You can search using Boolean operators (and, or and not) and exact phrase searching (text within quotes, "exact phrase.")   See Search Tips for more information.
  • The retrieved results will be ranked by relevance. The more stars the result has, the more relevant the document is to your query.
  • Unlike searches performed by many other engines, your search will be conducted in real-time. Some results will be returned immediately, displaying as the search continues. This all ows you to read through the results that are returned the fastest while the search keeps working. As the search goes on, you may select Add Results to add new results to your current view. This doesn't delete any results from the current view, but can change the order in which you see results listed.

Advanced Search

The Advanced Search page provides options you can use to refine your search. This is useful if you are searching for something in particular and have the title, keyword or author of your target. The advanced search page has three parts: Search Fields, Categories and Featured Collections.

Search Fields

You can customize an advanced search to target specific fields or collections and improve your chances of finding exactly what you are looking for.

You can search Full Text, Title, Author, and Date Range.

  • Full Text will search the entire content of a document (when available.) This is the same as a "Simple Search."
  • Title will search for a specific title in the collection's databases.
  • Author will return results from a specified author.  For more accurate results, use the last name of the author.
You may select any or all fields; this allows you to decide how the search operates between fields:
  • ALL is the default, and finds results that contain your search term in all fields where you have entered a search term.
  • ANY finds results that contain your search term in any of the fields where you have entered a search term.
Date Range allows you to specify the publication date you want to search for.
  • Leaving the boxes blank is the default, and will not search for a specific date.
  • Selecting the same 'From' and 'To' years will search within that single year.
  • Selecting different 'From' and 'To' years will search the specified range; you must select a 'To' date. Only selecting a 'From' date will generate an error message.
  • Selecting only the 'To' year will search any year up to and including the year selected.

Categories

  • You can select up to three categories during a search.  Simply check the corresponding boxes.
  • To further refine a search, you can click on a category and select individual collections within a new window.
  • Use the Search button to run the search.
  • You can use the Clear All button to clear the search terms in all fields and revert to the default settings.

Featured Collections

Featured collections are information sources that use federated search or are known for presenting exceptional, authoritative information for researchers.
  • Featured collections are located at the top of the advanced search page and at the top of the individual category pages. 
  • You can select any number of featured collections can be selected during a search, regardless of how many category groups you choose.

Search Results

Your search results will appear listed in order of relevance. The search will be done using "incremental searching," meaning the fastest results will be retrieved and displayed for you to read while the search keeps working to bring back results from the slower collections. Once all of the collections have been searched, you may see the following dialogue box:
You may choose Include these results to add more results to your current list. This will merge the new results into your current list and re-rank the entire list according to relevance, so what you see in your results list will change. If you don't want to change your original results list, click Do not include these results to return to that list. This is helpful if you've already spotted exactly what you want, or if you're still reading through the results on your original list. At any time, you can click "Add results" to include the additional results into your list.

You can select My Preferences at the top of the page to modify the display of the Additional Results box or the number of results displayed. The settings only apply to your current browser session.

Search Tools

Collection Status

The Collection Status link shows the responsiveness of each separate collection. The green check mark indicates the search at that particular collection completed successfully. The red x indicates that the collection didn't respond, didn't do so quickly enough to allow a full search to be completed. The number in the Results column shows how many relevant results were retrieved for your search. The Totals column shows how many results, including those not relevant to your search, were retrieved directly on the collection website.

We suggest you use the Collection Status link to discover new collections of information and learn where you can focus additional searching.

Sorting by Field and Limiting by Source

You can sort by Rank, Date, Title, Author, and Collection Order.

  • Rank - The most relevant results (those with five stars) will appear at the top of the results list.
  • Date - Results with the most recent dates will appear at the top of the results list.
  • Title - Results will be sorted alphabetically by title (titles starting with special characters or quotes will appear first, followed by numerals, followed by "A".)
  • Author - Results will be sorted alphabetically bu the author's last name, with special characters or quotes at the top of the list.
  • Collection Order - This option will only appear when you select one collection the "Limit to" dropdown box. Sorting by Collection Order will filter the results so they appear in exactly the order in which they were returned on the original search engine.

You can also filter results by individual collections with the 'Limit to' drop-down box. Using this box allows you to display results from only one collection. You may also sort these results by Rank, Date, Title, Author or Collection Order.

The default display is sorted by Rank with All Collections displayed..

Topics

The Topics section is a navigation tool which allows you to drill deeper into the results set for even more precise results. Under the Topics heading, at the left of your results page, results will be grouped into clusters related to your search term. Under the Topics heading, results will be grouped into clusters related to your search term. The topics section can help guide you to the results you need by grouping your results by topic, collection, author, date, publication and publisher. In the Topics section, you can refine your results to display only those in the category you select.

Using Topics with the Sort by and Limit to tools allows you to move through pages rapidly to find the results you need.

Selecting, Downloading and Printing Results

The navigation bar directly below the banner allows you to view, edit and clear your My Selections list and print or email the complete results list.

Your Selections and Clear Selections

You can check the box next to any result to add it to 'My Selections'. This creates a list where you can save as many results as you need, allowing you to gather information while you browse different results pages, perform multiple searches and refine your results sets.

Your My Selections list will be available to view until you either close your browser, deselect the selections in your list by clicking the check box again, or choosing Clear Selections.

From the My Selections page, select the Back to Results button to return to your original result list. You can also email, print or download (through the Citations link if available) your selected results. 

Citations Downloading

You may download your results using the Citations link, located on the My Selections page. If you use a bibliographic reader, such as EndNote or Refworks, you may download the selected results into your citation manager via an RIS formatted download. Your citation manager should automatically display the downloaded results.

Print Results

The Print Page option allows you to print directly from your main results or from My Selections.

Emailing Results

  • The Email Results link allows you to email a set of results to yourself, friends or colleagues.
  • Select Email Results and enter the required information (indicated by a red asterisk.)
  • You may select the number and format of the emailed results.
  • This function is also available from the My Selections page, where you can email specific selected results.
  • If you do not receive your email results in a few minutes, check your spam filter.

Search Tips

Searches can include:

  • Multiple keywords (AND is the default.)
    Example: A search on research development will return results on both research AND development
  • Expressions using the logical operators "and", "or" and "not"
    Example: A search on research AND development will return results that contain both 'research' and 'development;' research OR development will return results that contain either 'research' or 'development;' research NOT development will return results that contain 'research' but not 'development.'
  • Phrases search for terms contained in double quotation marks.
    Example: A search on "green technology" will return results containing the exact phrase 'green technology.'
  • Wildcards
    • Use * to search for the term with 0 or more additional characters.
      Example: invest* will return results that contain 'invest,' 'invests,' invested,' 'investor,' 'investment' and 'investing.'
    • Use ? to search for the term with only 1 additional character (characters include numbers, letters and punctuation.)
      Example: DO? will return results with the terms DOE, DOI, DOT, DOG, etc.

As a rule, full text and boolean searching are supported if the collection database supports it. If full text is returned, you may see a .PDF, .PPT or .TXT icon displayed.

Your search is not case sensitive (for example, RAIN, Rain and rain will produce the same results).

Do you have more questions? Contact Us!