Helpful Searching Tips

Phrase Searching

You can use double quotes to search for a series of words in a particular order.

For example, "Appalachian Basin" (with quotes) will give more precise results than "Appalachian Basin" (without quotes).

Wildcard Searches

To perform a single character wildcard search use the ? symbol.

For example, to search for "graywacke" or "greywacke" you can use the search:

gr?ywacke

To perform a multiple character, 0 or more, wildcard search use the * symbol.

For example, to search for glacier, glacial or glaciology, you can use the search:

glaci*

You can also use the wildcard searches in the middle of a term.

alekse*ev

Note: You cannot use a * or ? symbol as the first character of a search.

Fuzzy Searches

Use the tilde ~ symbol at the end of a Single word Term. For example, to search for variant spellings of "Maud" use the fuzzy search:

Maud~

An additional parameter can specify the required similarity. The value is between 0 and 1, with a value closer to 1 only terms with a higher similarity will be matched. For example:

Maud~0.8

The default that is used if the parameter is not given is 0.5.

Proximity Searches

Use the tilde ~ symbol at the end of a Multiple word Term. For example, to search for bergs and ice that are within 10 words apart:

"bergs ice"~10
Range Searches

To perform a range search you can use the { } characters. For example to search for a term that starts with either A, B, or C:

{A TO C}

The same can be done with numeric fields such as the Year:

[2002 TO 2003]
Boosting a Term

To apply more value to a term, you can use the ^ character. For example, you can try the following search:

berg ice^5

Which will give more value to the term "ice"

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined with logic operators. The following operators are allowed: AND, +, OR, NOT and -.

Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS

AND

The AND operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the AND operator is used. The AND operator matches records where both terms exist anywhere in the field of a record.

To search for records that contain "floor" and "ocean" use the query:

floor ocean

or

floor AND ocean
+

The "+" or required operator requires that the term after the "+" symbol exist somewhere in the field of a record.

To search for records that must contain "floor" and may contain "ocean" use the query:

+floor ocean
OR

The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching record if either of the terms exist in a record.

To search for documents that contain either "floor ocean" or just "ocean" use the query:

"floor ocean" OR ocean
NOT

The NOT operator excludes records that contain the term after NOT.

To search for documents that contain "wave" but not "ocean" use the query:

wave NOT ocean

Note: The NOT operator cannot be used with just one term. For example, the following search will return no results:

NOT wave
-

The - or prohibit operator excludes documents that contain the term after the "-" symbol.

To search for documents that contain "wave" but not "ocean" use the query:

wave -ocean