Help

• Simple Search
• Advanced Search
• Search Results
• Search Tools
• Selecting and Printing Results
• Emailing Results
• Spelling Suggestion
• Search Tips
• Alerts

Simple Search

A simple search from the homepage will search all collections. To conduct a "simple search":

• Type in your keyword(s), like "deep web technologies", and select Search
• The retrieved results will be ranked by relevance. The higher the number of stars, the more relevant the document is to your query.
• Unlike many other engines, searches are conducted in real-time. As results are retreived, you may select Add Results to add new results to your current view. This allows you to read through your results while the search continues. NOTE: This does not delete any results from the current view, but may show new results on the first page based on ranking.

Advanced Search

An advanced search can be customized to target specific fields or collections.

• You can search Full Record, Title, Author, and Date Range.
• Full Record will search the entire content of a document, when available.
• Title will search for a specific title in the collections' 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 with terms occurring in all fields where you have entered a search term.
• ANY finds results with terms occurring in any of the fields where you have entered a search term.


• Date Range allows you to search one or more years in the drop-down boxes.





• Leaving the boxes blank is the default, and will not search for a specific date.
• 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 the same 'From' and 'To' years will search within that single year.
• Selecting only the 'To' year will search any year prior to, and including, the year selected.
• Categories or individual collections can be selected for a specific search. Simply check the collections to include in the search, or Select All at the top of the list to search all collections. Clicking Select All will select or deselect all of the collections.
• The Search button runs the search.
• The Clear All button clears the search terms in all fields and reverts to the default settings.

Search Results

Your results will appear, in order of relevance, in the middle section of your screen.   The engine conducts incremental searching, meaning the fastest results will be retrieved and displayed for you to read while the search continues and brings 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 or Do not include these results to return to your original search list.  If the initial set of results are sufficient, you may not wish to alter the list by adding additional sites.

You may 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 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 timed out or was slow/unresponsive prior to completing a full search. The number in the Results column signifies the number of relevant sites retrieved for your search. The Totals column shows how many results were pulled directly on the collection website. NOTE: Not all publishers provide totals.

Using the Collection Status link will help you discover new collections for information, or where additional searching should take place.

Sorting

You may sort by Rank, Date, Title, Author and filter results by individual Collections with the 'Limit to' drop-down box.

   

The default display is sorted by relevance.

Topics

Under the Topics heading, at the left of your results page, results will be grouped into clusters related to your search term. The topics section can help guide you to needed results by grouping your results by topic, collection, author, date and publisher. By selecting one of the clusters, only the results within that category will be displayed. You can filter and further refine your results by using your sorting tools.

Selecting and Printing Results

The navigation bar directly below the banner allows you to view, edit and clear your selected results 'My Selections', go to your Alerts account or register for a new account (if included in your application), and print or email the complete results list. 

Your Selections and Clear Selections

Checking the box next to any result will add it to 'My Selections'.

These will be available for viewing on the My Selections page during your browser session, unless you deselect them by clicking the check box again, or choose Clear Selections. From the My Selections page, select the Back to Results button to return to your original result list. Also from the My Selections page, you can email, print or download (through the Citations link if available) your selected results.

Email 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.

Print Results

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

Spelling Suggestion

The search engine will suggest words and phrases when a misspelling is detected. You'll see this in the upper left corner of the results page. Simply select the suggested term and a new search will be performed with the corrected query information.

Search Tips

Search's can include:

• Multiple terms (AND is the default)
  Example: A search on research development will return results on both research AND development
• Expressions using logical operators "and", "or" or "not"
  Example: A search on research AND development will return results where both research and development appear; research OR development will return results where either research or development appear; research NOT development will return results with research that do not contain the word development.
• Phrases search for terms contained in double quotation marks
  Example: A search on "green technology" will return results where the term green is immediately followed by the term technology.
• Wildcards
• Use * to search for the term with 0 or more additional characters
  Example: invest* will return results with the terms 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.

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

Alerts

Alerts can make your recurring searches even easier by automating your search and sending you the results on a regular basis.  To receive alerts on your topic(s) of interest, simply create an Alerts account, specify your alert parameters and check your email. During your search, at any time, you may select the Get Updates on This Search link at the top of the search page to get alerts emailed to you on your search terms. Note: Not all Deep Web Technologies have the Alerts Service.