The Lubin Files

%^&*! Wildcards

I was trying to help someone to formulate a search strategy for the topic of "nutrition programs." She wanted to know if she should search using the spelling -program- or -programme-

The answer is that you should search for both.  You don't want to eliminate records from your search results just because the author spells differently from you.

The easiest way to accomodate for variant spellings is to incorporate wildcard characters into your search.  In most databases, you can retrieve all variations of a word by adding an asterisk at the end of it (as in: program*)  Wildcards vary from database to database, (you might find yourself using program! or program$  or program%) so you should consult the help pages of the database you're using if you don't get the results you wanted.

(NB: The Google search interface doesn't support wildcard characters)

Search tips

These great search tips were written by a librarian who provides input for the CABI blog.  This useful advice applies to searching any database, not just CAB Abstracts. Most of these tips come in handy anytime you'd like to be sure that you're getting the best results out of your search.  Even if you're only searching the internet.

Google cheat sheet

Find here tips to improve the quality of your Google search.

Title Searching in Google, Cont...

Awhile ago, I made a post about limiting your Google search to the title field as a way of limiting the number of records in your search results.

That method involved typing the following into the Google search box:
intitle:type your term here

You may recall that this method is problematic if your search term includes more than one word.  This type of search will only retrieve the first word next to the colon in the title field.  The rest of the words will appear anywhere at all in the record.

If you want to force all of your search terms to appear in the title field, type the following into the Google search box:

allintitle:type your term here

Search the title field!

Having trouble with your Google search?

Did you get 7,999,999 results when you were only looking for one page?

Try limiting your search to the title field.  If the word that you're looking for is in the title of a web page, chances are that the web page is relevant to what you were searching for.

Type the following syntax into the Google Toolbar or the search box on the Google home page:

intitle:type your term here

This method isn't perfect.  It's a bit problematic if your search term includes more than one word, but I recommend that you try it.  It will definitely bring your list of results down to under one million.

Google Definitions

Did you know that you can find a host of definitions on the web by typing the following syntax into the Google Tool Bar or the search box on the Google home page?

define:type your term here

Try it sometime!  You might be surprised at how good the definitions actually are!

Couldn't find it on the internet...

We received the following request via e-mail:

I would be grateful for your kind  assistance in  identifying articles and books on AGRIBUSINESS FINANCE published after 2000. I have already carried out internet based searches with limited results.
--Thank you for your help.

This patron must not have been aware of our library databases.  If you can't find what you're looking for on the internet, or if what you find seems to be of dubious quality, you would probably benefit from a more focused search. 

Toosh was able to find a lot of useful material in the Proquest database, and I sent this patron a list of citations from the CAB, AGRIS, and EconLit databases.

The downside of searching databases is that you might not find the entire article at your fingertips in one click.  The upside is that you can be sure when you're finished that you have pretty well exhausted the field of published scholarly literature.