SmartWeb: CMNH Diplodocus and Douglass Collection: Search Help

How do I search the collection?
From the main page, click Access, and then click Search the Collection. This will take you to the search page. From here you can do a simple search, or click "Advanced Search" for a more complex search.

Simple Search
Type in a word or phrase you would like to search for, and click the Search button. This will search through all the texts, as well as the items’ descriptions, returning results in the order of their relevance.

If all the results do not fit on one page, you can use the "Next >>" and "Previous <<" links to page through them.

Advanced Search
To search for a specific phrase, type it into the box labeled "the phrase." This will search for documents containing the entire phrase you have entered.

To search for several individual words, use the box labeled "all the words." This will find documents containing each of the words you entered, not necessarily together.

To eliminate results containing certain words, enter those words in the box labeled "without the words." Items containing any of the words you have entered here will not appear in your search results.

By default, results are sorted by relevance. Using the "sort by" dropdown box, you can also sort your results by the date of the documents. "Date" sorts results in ascending order (oldest to newest), "Date (desc)" sorts results in descending order (newest to oldest).

If all the results do not fit on one page, you can use the "Next >>" and "Previous <<" links to page through them, or click on a page number to view that page of results.

Searching tips:

• It is not necessary to use quotes around search terms. Capitalization of terms will not affect search results either.
• Punctuation and all other non-alphanumeric characters are ignored by the search engine (ex. "ave." will return the same results as "ave"). You only need to use letters and numbers in your search.
• The search engine supports the use of the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT (ex. "Computer Science AND Education" will find results that contain both the phrase "Computer Science" and the word "Education"). Boolean operators must be typed in all caps. It may be easier to use the Advanced Search, as this allows for the same functionality without the use of Boolean operators.
• In Simple Search, terms not separated by Boolean operators are considered a single phrase.
• Relevance is determined by complicated logic, but basically results will be sorted by how close they are to your actual query, based on word order as well as matches to individual words.
• The best way to find documents from a certain date or range of dates is to sort your results by date (in Advanced Search). Items from a given time period will then appear grouped together within the search results.