1. How do I search the digital library?
2. Are the search terms case sensitive?
3. How do I specify a search other than entering one word in the search box?
5. Does the search engine support Boolean logic queries?
6. What happens if nothing is displayed when I hit the enter key on the search engine?
7. When I search for "bear" why do I get treaties and agreements that have nothing to do with polar and other bears?
1. Q. How do I search the digital
library?
A. First see Quick Search
Guide. For more detailed instructions, see other question and answers on
this page as well as tips below on using the Boolean logic.
2. Q. Are the search terms case sensitive?
A. Yes, see more information on this in the "case
sensitivity" section of this page.
3. Q. How do I specify a search other than entering one word in the search box?
A. There are several options to advance your search. Please refer to the
Boolean Search section below for different options.
4. Q. What is the reason for matching "all terms" versus "any terms" in conjunction with the search criteria?
A. This match option enhances the search functionality (see the "Boolean
Search" section for additional suggestions about searching the database).
5. Q. Does the search engine support Boolean logic queries?
A. Yes. Check the
Boolean Search section on this page (below) for further discussion about the methods for searching the database with examples.
6. Q. What happens if nothing is displayed when I hit the enter key on the search engine?
A. Make sure that there are terms typed into the
"criteria" box.
7. Q. When I search for "bear" why do I get treaties
and agreements that have nothing to do with polar and other bears?
A. The word "bear" is
a homonym where it has two meanings, but looks and sounds the same. The word
"bear" is an animal but can also mean "to carry". Making your search terms more
specific will allow you to avoid search results that you are not interested in.
For example, enter the genus of bears (Ursus), the species name (Ursus
maritimus), or the more specific common name (+polar +bear).
8. Q. Why are results organized by year rather than
by subject? My research would benefit from searches divided into topic such as
fisheries, pollution, marine mammals, natural gas mining, shipping and
transportation, and conservation. My students would like to view results by
particular fishing gear.
A. Results are displayed by year because this is the
only way to organize them in an objective manner that is useful to research.
Many international environmental treaties refer to more than one topic, so some
of your results would be repetitive granules and documents. For example, refer
to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (search 0-0760-0905.htm
in this digital library for full text in hierarchy). Would this treaty be placed
under the topic of fisheries, mining, shipping or conservation? It deals with
all of these topics so if the resulting granules of your search were displayed
under all the subject areas, you would have several of the same granules
revealed for different subjects.
The Boolean search capabilities of the DIGIN system allows users to search
topics and then specify within a topic, if desired. For example, you may want to
only see what documents refer to whales or whaling. Then you may ask the library
which of these granules also refer to shipping and ships. These results can be
achieved by using the Boolean search capabilities by typing the following into
the search term bar and pushing Integrate: +whal* +ship*
See below for more tips on Boolean searches.
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MORE HELPFUL SEARCH INFORMATION
This help page is designed to assist with your search of information contained in the international documents contained in the international treaties and conventions that were collected by the Marine Mammal Commission for the years 1808-2000.
The EvREsearch® Digital Integration System comes with some advanced capabilities to help you find exactly what you are looking for. These capabilities are best shown with a few examples:
EvREsearch® Digital Integration System Capabilities
DIGIN Integration Engine Search:
Patented search engine algorithm that locates individual information granules within a database. Within the Marine Mammal Commission Compendia, these finite elements range from conventions to articles and individual recommendations that have been formulated, considered and recommended during different years. For more information on DIGIN search technology, visit http://digin.tierit.com.
The More Detailed Your Query, The More Relevant Your Results.
Any term, phrase or topic that you are interested in searching within the international documents that have been compiled for the Marine Mammal Commission Compendia, such as "conservation," "fossil," "ice," "mineral," "protected area" or "whale.""
Translation: require tuna, require
conservation
Finds "tuna ...
conservation", "conservation
of tuna ".
Does not find the uppercase "Tuna conservation", nor "Thunnus albacares conservation".
Translated: forbid tuna, require conservation
Finds "after conservation
", "asked for conservation
",
and uppercase "Tuna ...
conservation".
Does not find "tuna ...
conservation" nor "conservation
... tuna ".
Translated: prefer tuna, require conservation
Finds "tuna ... ",
"tuna ...
conservation", and "conservation".
Translated: require the phrase "tuna conservation"
Finds "tuna
conservation".
Does not
find "Tuna
conservation" nor "conservation
of tuna".
Translated: require tunaconserv""
Finds "tuna ...
conserving ...",
"tuna ...
conserve", "conservation ...
tuna".
The asterisk is a
wildcard representing any four or fewer characters.
Translated: require tuna (case sensitive), require management, forbid China, prefer driftnet.
When such combinations exist in the document this search first lists
"tuna
... management ...
driftnet",
then "tuna
... management".
Does not
list uppercase "Tuna ...
management", nor forbidden
"China ...
tuna" .
Translated: ignores common words like where, is, and the - requires words containing "over"
Finds "overall," "oversnow," "overcome," "overlain," "over-wintering" and other similar terms.
*Note on case sensitivity - only
words or phrases containing an upper case character will be treated as case
sensitive. A search on "usa" will match "Usa", "USA", and "usA", while the
term "USA" matches only its uppercase version. The asterisk is a powerful search tool, but has
some limitations. It cannot span words - that is, the query "powerfu*earch"
would not match the first sentence of this paragraph - and it can represent at
most four letters or numbers. To avoid overly broad searches, the asterisk can
only be used in words or phrases that have at least three alpha-numeric
characters. A search for "th*" would be ignored. An example of a search with “tuna + conservation” as criteria is shown in the following
figure. This expandable-collapsible hierarchy comprehensively identifies
relationships among the 28 information granules that satisfy the search criteria
among the 720 that currently are in the database. The overall web
layout is shown with “Help, FAQ and other files.
