Guide to search
The search box, present on every page of CAB Direct, provides a convenient place from which to start your search. Searches can range from a single word to a complex search query that utilizes all the features of the supported search language.
1 Simple search
Typing terms into the search box will, by default, search for records that contain your search term(s) in any of the indexed fields in a database record. This includes:
- Title: (et=English Title and ft=Non-English Title)
- Author: (au=Personal Author, av=Author Variant, ed=Editors, ad= Additional Authors and ca=Corporate Author)
- Abstract: (ab)
- Descriptors: (de)
- Organism Descriptors: (od)
- Geographic Location: (gl)
- Broad Terms: (up)
- Identifiers: (id)
- Conference Title: (ct)
- ISSN: (sn)
- ISBN: (bn)
- DOI: (oi)
- Record number: (pa)
2 Words, phrases and terms
A search query may be broken up into terms and operators.
There are two types of term: Single Word Terms and Multi-Word Phrases.
A Single Term is a single word such as cat or dog.
Multiple words, when entered into the search box, are treated as Single Terms and combined with an "invisible" AND.
In this way, the records found by the search must, by definition, include all the searched terms. This gives a very specific, defined result.
A Phrase is a group of words and, to search for a specific phrase, like <cattle breeds> rather than searching for the individual word, the phrase must be surrounded by double quotes as in the example "cattle breeds".
A phrase search, like this, will give much more specific results. A search string can be entered that contains multiple terms, both singe words and phrases, as in the example "cattle breeds" "milk production" europe. These three terms will, by default, be combined with AND.
For greater control of your search, multiple terms can be combined together with the three Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) to form a more complex query (see below).
Stemming is a particular feature of CAB Direct which is designed to optimize the number of retrieved results and to improve a searcher's chances of retrieving the correct results without necessarily knowing a great deal about CABI's indexing or advanced search techniques. It is very effective in uncovering hidden information, particularly if used in conjunction with the Most Relevant option for sorting at Search Results display.
Stemming means that words are stemmed to include plurals of words and various versions with suffixes such as "ing". In a phrase search stemming also looks for approximate matches even if words are separated by several other words or punctuation marks.
For example a search for <cat breeds> will also retrieve results with <cat breeding> <cats and breed> <cat....breed>
Stemming is applied to all searches by default unless quotation marks " " are used to denote that a very specific result is required.
3 Boolean Searching
3.1 Mandatory
By default, terms separated by white-space will have the 'mandatory' AND operator applied to them, as explained above. This means that all retrieved records must contain all of the searched for terms.
However, any of the three Boolean operators, AND, OR or NOT may be used, either individually or in combination, within your search. Use of these operators offers you a greater flexibility when building your multi-term search.
3.2 AND
We have already seen the use of the AND operator which results in a more refined search. The AND operator "narrows" the search. As you use more ANDs the search becomes more refined and you will retrieve fewer but more relevant records.
e.g "cattle breeds" AND "milk production" and europe
All the records retrieved must contain all three search terms.
3.3 OR
The OR operator is used to broaden the search where you want to find records with just one of the words or records with some or all of the words.
The search example cattle or sheep or horses will retrieve all the records that mention just cattle, just sheep or just horses plus any records that contain two or more of the terms. The more terms that are "ORed" together, the larger the set of search results.
3.4 NOT
You may exclude words from your search results by prefixing the word with the word 'NOT', as in cattle not housing. The NOT operator will refine your search, reducing the number of records that you retrieve. Be careful using the NOT operator as you may lose some relevant records.
3.5 Using Multiple Operators
As an experienced searcher, you may wish to combine search terms with multiple operators, to form a more complex search. This can be done but needs careful thought if the search is to be performed correctly.
Let us take a simple example where we are looking for records about "
the housing of cattle or sheep in europe". Let us also assume that we are not interested in records about diseases.
The search statement might look something like <housing AND cattle OR sheep NOT diseases>.
Here we are using all three operators in a single statement but, because only one operation can be done at a time, we need to make sure that the terms are combined in the correct order. We do this with the use of brackets ().
The operation that we need done first is enclosed in a set of brackets.
(cattle OR sheep)
The operation that we want to perform next is then enclosed in another set of brackets.
(housing AND (sheep OR cattle))
And finally we add the last operation to the search.
(housing AND (cattle OR sheep)) NOT diseases
The search will now be performed in the correct order. Boolean searching, as this is known, is a very powerful way of searching and will offer the best results.
4 Field searching
A typical CABI database record is made up of a number of individual data fields like the Title, the Abstract, etc. By default, searches are performed in what is known as the "free-text" search index. This search index comprises all the words from all the important "subject" fields plus the Author.
A full list of the Free-Text fields is given in part 1 of this guide.
A search of the Free-text index will retrieve the maximum number of records but, because it contains all the words from the Abstract and Title fields, the results may contain a significant proportion of less relevant records.
To refine a search, a user can "LIMIT" a search to a specific field in both the Quick Search and the Advanced Search screens.
In the Advanced Search screen simply choose the field from the drop-down menu.
In the Quick Search box, type the Field Name, followed by a colon (:) as in the example ti:cattle.
The field is only valid for the term that it directly precedes. To group several terms together with a single field, a user may use either quotes, if searching for a phrase, or parentheses (brackets) if searching for separate words. Here are a few examples:
pb:blackwell publishing
Would match 'blackwell' in the publisher field, and 'publishing' in the Free-Text index.
pb:"blackwell publishing"
Would match the phrase 'Blackwell Publishing' in the publisher field.
pb:(blackwell publishing)
Would match 'blackwell' AND 'publishing' (in any order and proximity) in the publisher field.
The operators + and - can be prefixed to the field name e.g.
CAB Direct Fields and their Abbreviations
All the fields, in the table below, are individually searchable but some fields are more useful than others. Some of the most useful fields are:
Title title:cattle
Descriptors de:fertilizers
Organism Descriptors od:"triticm aestivum"
Geographic Location gl:france
Broad Terms up:europe
CABICODES cc:kk100
There are also three "Super Indexes" that need to be searched with full names for these fields: Author index which searches for Personal Authors, Editors and Corporate Authors and the Author variant
; search as a phrase by inserting dashes
author:Smith-A-J
Subject index which searches a combination of Descriptors, Organism Descriptors, Geographic Location and Identifiers.
subject:(cattle housing europe)
Title index which searches for the English Title and Non-English Title
title:Enzyme
Description Field Tag/Name
Abstract ab
Additional Authors ad
Author Affiliation aa
CABICODES cc
CAS Registry Numbers ry
Conference Dates cd
Conference Title ct
Corporate Author ca
Country of Publication cp
Descriptors de
Digital Object Identifier oi
Document Editors ed
Document Title do
Email em
English Item Title et
Non English Item Title ft
Geographic Location gl
Identifiers id
ISBN bn
ISSN sn
Item Type it
Language(s) of Summary ls
Language(s) of Text la
Location of Publisher lp
Main Abstract ab
Organism Descriptors od
Pan Number pa
Personal Author au
Personal Author Variants av
Publisher pb
CABI Product Code sc
Up-posted Descriptors or Broad Terms up
Web URL ur
Year of Publication yr
6 Other examples
6.1 Find an abstract by its unique ID
Users may search for the accession number for a particular record by specifying the Accession Number field (e.g. pa:20020293241).
6.2 Find all records in a particular product.
Fielded search can be used to retrieve all abstracts in a particular SC code. e.g. "
sc:gh" will retrieve all Global Health articles.
Subject/SC Code Product Name
CA CAB Abstracts 1973-Current
X0 CAB Abstracts Archive
HE Global Health 1973- Current
X9 Global Health Archive
ZS CAB Abstracts + Global Health 1973-Current
7B AgBiotechNet Database
ZA Animalscience Database
ZD Nutrition and Food Sciences Database
TR ForestScience Current Database
XF ForestScience Archive Database
3R LeisureTourism Database
ZC Organic Research Database
VE VetMed Resource Database
ZG Environmental Impact Database
FT CABI Full Text
FR CAB Reviews Current
FA CAB Reviews Archive
FV Distribution Maps of Plant Pests
FW Distribution Maps of Plant Diseases
FX Descriptions of Fungi and Bacteria
GF CAB eBooks Current file
GA CAB eBooks Archive file
B1 CAB eBooks Agriculture file
B2 CAB eBooks Animal&Veterinary file
B3 CAB eBooks Environment file
B4 CAB eBooks Human, Food, Nutrition file
B5 CABeBooks Leisure and Tourism
B6 CABeBooks Plant Sciences
8A Agricultural Engineering
0E Agricultural Entomology
7Y Agroforestry
0A Animal Breeding
0N Animal Nutrition
5C Aromatic&Medicinal Plants
7E Biocontrol
YB Biofuels
YA Botanical Pesticides
7Q Crop Physiology
0D Dairy Science
0Q Field Crops
1F Forest Products
0F Forestry
0G Grasslands and Forage
0H Helminthology
0C Horticultural Science
0U Human Nutrition
7S Irrigation and Drainage
3R Leisure, Recreation, Tourism
6P Maize
0J Medical and Veterinary Entomology
0L Medical&Veterinary Mycology
0T Nematology
7C Ornamnental Horticulture
7D Pig Science
0P Plant Breeding
6C Plant Genetic Resources
7W Plant Growth Regulators
0M Plant Pathology
7H Postharvest Research
7K Potatoes
7A Poultry
0Y Protozoology
1T Public Health
7U Rice
2R Rural Development
7G Seed Science
0S Soils and Fertilizers
7N Soyabeans
1C Sugar Industry
2T Tropical Diseases
0W Weeds
6T Wheat
0I Index Veterinarius
0V Veterinary Bulletin
VE Veterinary Medicine
0R World Ag.Economics and Rural Sociology
Searching CABDirect via Metasearch:
CABDirect provides an XML gateway for federated search connections, the CABDirect MXG handler which implements NISO Metasearch XML Gateway (MXG) level 1 protocol (http://www.niso.org/publications/rp/RP-2006-02.pdf). The federated search connection will support simple and complex boolean queries for any search fields in CAB Direct, including author, title, subject, abstract, keyword, publication year.
The gateway handler is for CAB Direct can be found at
http://www.cabdirect.org/mxg/cabdirect
