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Help provides assistance in the following areas:

508 Approved

Search Features

Adjacency

Information Bridge allows you to search for exact character strings or phrases. This is known as a literal search and provides the same functionality as an adjacency operator. To search, use double quotes around the phrase entered in the query box. For example, using the Bibliographic Info field, enter:

  • "high performance computing"
  • "wastewater treatment"

Case Sensitivity

Queries conducted in this system are case insensitive. A word entered in lower case will match words entered in upper case, lower case, or mixed case.

Date Range Searching

Information Bridge supports date range searching. To search for a specific date range, use the Advanced Search. Select Publication Date or System Entry Date from the FIELD drop-down menu. In the WORD OR PHRASE query box, enter the beginning date and ending dates of your selected range. The format for dates is YYYY-MM-DD.

Operators

Boolean operators can be used to broaden or narrow your queries. Operators are used to indicate logical relationships between the descriptive terms that make up your query. Operators are case insensitive.

  • AND – Narrows your search. All resources/documents retrieved must contain all of the search terms you specify. Examples:
    • technical AND information
    • radioactive AND wastes
  • OR – Broadens your search. All resources/documents retrieved must contain at least one of the search terms you specify. Examples:
    • nuclear OR radioactive
    • metals OR alloys
  • NOT – Narrows your search by allowing you to exclude specific search terms. Examples:
    • wastes NOT radioactive
    • "air pollution" NOT ozone

Operators can be used within a single query box and/or between fields when using Advanced Search. For example, if you are interested in finding publications/resources in chemistry published after 1996, follow these steps:

  • Go to the Advanced Search, click on the first FIELD drop-down arrow, and highlight Subject.
  • Enter Chemistry in the WORD OR PHRASE query box.
  • Go to the next FIELD drop-down arrow and highlight Publication Date.
  • Enter 1996/01/01 (with format YYYY-MM-DD) and today’s date (with format YYYY-MM-DD) in the WORD OR PHRASE query box.
  • Click on the Search button.

Wild Cards

The asterisk (*) is used as a wild card for one or more characters, while the question mark (?) is used as a wild card for a single character. (A single character has to be there. For example, dog? will find dogs, but will not find dog.) Using a wild card allows you to search for words with the same prefix or stem. Examples:

  • Comput* (will find compute, computer, computerize, computers, etc.)
  • water* (will find water, waters, waterflooding, watersheding, etc.)
  • water? (will find waters, but not water, waterflooding, watersheding)

Drop-Down Menus

To assist you in formulating queries using the Advanced Search screen, Drop-Down Menus have been created for select fields. Drop-Down Menus are lists of standardized values that are valid for a particular field. You can select one or more values from the Drop-Down Menu. To select one, click on the value(s) you want included in the your query. To select multiple values, click again on the same drop-down arrow and make another selection. Repeat the last step until all values desired are selected.

Search Options

Two search screens are available:

  • Easy Search – Allows you to search the Full-Text and Bibliographic Info, Title, Creator/Author, or Identifier Number. The default is Full-Text and Bibliographic Info. To choose a different field, click on the drop arrow and then highlight the field you wish to search.
  • Advanced Search – Allows you to do field searching and to formulate complex queries. You can perform a simple search by selecting a single field and submitting your query, or you can formulate a complex query by selecting multiple fields and connecting them with operators.

Sorting Search Results

Information Bridge allows you to sort your search results by Relevance, Publication Date, Resource/Document Type, Title, Research Organization, Sponsoring Organization, or OSTI Identifier.

To use the sort feature, click on the drop-down arrow to highlight the field you wish to sort by. Then select either ascending or descending and initiate your search. If you sort by Publication Date and one or more of your matches does not contain a publication date, the bibliographic records will appear at the end of the Search Results listing.

For nonnumerical data, an ascending selection provides results in alphabetical order and a descending selection provides results in reverse alphabetical order.

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Field Definitions and Query Examples

  1. Full-Text and Biblio – Full text of the entire resource/publication as well as the entire bibliographic record. The entire bibliographic record and the full-text resource/publication is searched. To search, enter term(s) in the query box. Examples:
    • conservation
    • "global warming"
    • electric AND vehicles
    • automobiles OR cars OR vehicles
  2. Bibliographic Info – The entire bibliographic record for the resource/publication. Enter search term(s) in the query box(es). Examples:
    • conservation
    • electric AND vehicles
    • automobiles OR cars OR vehicles
  3. Title – Title of the resource/publication. If applicable, includes subtitles. Search by full title or words in title. Examples:
    • electric OR hybrid
    • "carbon dioxide"
  4. Creator/Author – Name(s) of the person(s) or entity responsible for creating the resource/publication. Examples:
    • Smith
    • "Smith, J."
    • "Smith, J.D."
    • "Smith, J*"
    • J Smith
    • CDF Collaboration
  5. Subject – Terms used to describe key concepts in the resource/publication. Includes keywords. Examples:
    • environment
    • "greenhouse effect"
    • "solar energy" AND buildings
    • "solar energy" OR "wind energy"
  6. Identifier Numbers – Number(s) associated with the resource/publication. Numbers can be searched with or without special characters. The following fields are searched:
  7. Report Number – Identifying number assigned to the resource/publication. Examples:
    • DOE/PC/93215-T7
    • DOEPC93215T7
  8. DOE Contract Number – DOE contract or grant number under which the research was conducted. Examples:
    • FG22-93PC93215
    • FG2293PC93215
  9. OSTI ID – OSTI identifying number. Examples:
    • 1234
    • 772280
    • DE96004047
  10. Other Numbers – Includes
    • International classification code(s) (ISBN, ISSN, IPCC) assigned to the resource/publication. Example:
      • ISBN 0-87170-666-0
    • Budgeting and Reporting Code – Alphanumeric code used for tracking financial data by DOE program. Example:
      • YN0100000
    • Conference Number – Identifying number assigned to the conference. Examples:
      • CONF-970813
      • CONF970813
  11. Publication Date – The date the resource/publication was published. For patents, this is the date the patent was filed. Enter your selected date range for searching. The format for dates is YYYY-MM-DD.
  12. System Entry Date – Date that the resource/publication was added to the Dublin-Core Database. System Entry Dates for Bibliographic Records and Full Text are available from May 5, 2001. The format for dates is YYYY-MM-DD.
  13. Resource/Document Type – The type of resource/publication such as technical report or conference paper. A Drop-Down Menu is available. Select a value from the Drop-Down Menu or enter a free form choice. Examples:
    • Technical Report (from the Drop-Down Menu)
    • Workshop (free form choice)
  14. Research Organization – The organization where the research being reported was performed. Enter the name of the organization or the acronym for the DOE Laboratory or the corporate entity, if applicable. The search results will contain exact matches to the data entered. Examples:
    • ORNL
    • "Harvard University"
  15. Sponsoring Organization – The organization that funded the work being reported in the resource/publication. Enter the name of the organization or the acronym of the DOE organization, if applicable. The search results will contain exact matches to the data entered. Examples:
    • USDOE
    • EH-413
  16. Language – Language in which the resource/publication is written.
  17. Country – Country of publication

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Search Results

Viewing Bibliographic Records

To view the bibliographic record, initiate a search using either the Easy or Advanced Search screen then, from the Search Results page, click on the Identifier for the resource/document of your choice.

Viewing and Downloading Full Text

To view full text, simply click on the icon associated with the record. Then click on the full-text icon and the resource/document will automatically come up within the browser if the viewer has been loaded as a plug-in.

To save the full-text file, simply click on the icon associated with the record. Then, position the cursor over the icon and right click once with the mouse. Select "Save Link As..." and enter the file name with the proper extension for the file type (for example, .pdf for PDF files). After the file has been saved, open it from within the appropriate program (i.e., Acrobat Reader, Microsoft Word).

The resources/documents available on this database are submitted in a variety of formats; therefore, you may have various download format options. Resources/documents can be submitted electronically in PDF, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, SGML, HTML, XML, TIFF Group 4, or Postscript. Paper documents have been scanned and made available for download in PDF. All other documents submitted in electronic format are made available for download in PDF and the original format. If a document consists of more than one file, it is compressed (zipped) for downloading. It will have to be uncompressed (unzipped) before it can be viewed. Software to uncompress can be found at http://www.aladdinsys.com/downloads/index.html.

Format options for the resources/documents are indicated by the icons on the Search Results screen or the Document Display screen. Possible formats and their icons are:

PDF  PDF
Microsoft Word  Microsoft Word
WordPerfect  WordPerfect
HTML  HTML
Postscript  Postscript
ZIP  Zip
TIFF  TIFF Group 4
SGML  SGML
XML  XML