The INFO Project

General Search Tips

  1.  To perform a simple search, enter your search term and click on the "Search" button.  

All resource types (Documents, Photos, Communication Materials, and Organizations/Web Sites) are searched.  To restrict your search to a specific resource, (e.g., Documents) check the box to the left of the resource name and click "Search".

When performing a simple search, the fields searched are:

• keywords
• title
• photo caption
• author or corporate author
• photographer name
• abstract

2.  Search for a phrase by placing the term within quotation marks.

Placing quotation marks around the phrase "domestic violence" narrows a search to only those records containing the phrase domestic violence

3.  Construct a simple Boolean search using AND, OR, or NOT in the search box.  

If multiple words are entered without a Boolean operator, the default is AND.  For example, typing domestic violence searches for domestic AND violence (not domestic OR violence)

AND

The AND operator finds records where both terms exist in a single record.  To search for records that contain "genital cutting" and "West Africa" type: "genital cutting" AND "West Africa"

OR

The OR operator finds a record if either of the terms exist in a single record.  To search for records that contain either "reproductive health" or just violence type:  "reproductive health" OR violence

NOT

The NOT operator excludes records that contain the term following NOT.  To search for documents that contain "reproductive health" but not "adolescents" type: "reproductive health" NOT "adolescents"


 

Note: The NOT operator cannot be used without other terms. For example, the following search will return no results: NOT "Africa" 

4.  Use the asterisk as a wildcard to truncate, or shorten, a word.

You must use at least the first three characters of the word.  For example, to search for report, reports, or reporter, you can type: report* 

5.  Prepositions (e.g.: in, out) or articles (a, an, the) can only be searched in a quoted phrase otherwise they are not searchable.

A search for in the middle will search only for middle. 

6.  Searching is case insensitive.  Searching FGC or fgc will retrieve the same results.