eScholarship@UMassChan Searching Hints

eScholarship@UMassChan Searching Hints

Simple or basic search

  • To search the entire repository, use the search box at the top of each page.
  • To limit your search to a specific community or collection, navigate to Communities and select your Community.
  • Then use the search bar on that page to limit your search to the selected community.
  • You are also able to browse or do a keyword search within the Collections of this Community.

Phrase searching

  • Use quotation marks
  • Examples
    • "The Role of Age-Associated B Cells (ABC) in Combating Influenza Infection"
    • "mental health"

Truncation

  • Use an asterisk (*) after a word stem to get all hits having words starting with that root
  • Example: select* will retrieve selects, selector, selectman, selecting

Stemming

  • The search engine automatically expands words with common endings to include plurals, past tenses, etc.

Exact word match

  • Put a plus (+) sign before a word if it MUST appear in the search result. For instance, in the following search, the word "training" is optional, but the word "dog" must be in the result
  • Example: +dog training

Eliminate items with unwanted words

  • Put a minus (-) sign before a word if it should not appear in the search results. Alternatively, you can use NOT. This can limit your search to eliminate unwanted hits.
  • For instance, in the following search you will get items containing the word "training", except those that also contain the word "cat": training -cat or as another option training NOT cat

Boolean searching

  • The following Boolean operators can be used to combine terms. Note that they must be CAPITALIZED.
  • AND - to limit searches to find items containing all words or phrases combined with this operator, e.g.
    cats AND dogs will retrieve all items that contain BOTH the words "cats" and "dogs"
  • OR - to enlarge searches to find items containing any of the words or phrases surrounding this operator
    cats OR dogs will retrieve all items that contain EITHER the words "cats" or "dogs".
  • NOT - to exclude items containing the word following this operator, e.g.
    training NOT cat will retrieve all items that contain the word "training" EXCEPT those also containing the word "cat".
  • Note: The version of DSpace in our repository does an OR search if you enter multiple keywords in the basic search. This will change to an AND search when we upgrade to a newer version of DSpace in 2023. In the meantime, use the AND operator in the basic search or do a phrase search.

Field searching

Author

  • Use this syntax for searching: dc.contributor.author:"LastName, FirstName"
  • Examples
    • dc.contributor.author:"palmer"
    • dc.contributor.author:"palmer, lisa"
    • dc.contributor.author:"palmer, lisa a"
  • Use the Authors browse menu in the sidebar. You can go directly to the letter of the author’s last name. Or enter the last name or first few letters of the last name in the search box below the alphabet letters.
  • Hint: If you want to download a spreadsheet of an author’s works in the repository, use search rather than browse. The Export button has a CSV option.

PubMed ID

  • Enter a PubMed ID directly into the search box: 35526225
  • Targeted search: dc.identifier.pmid:31607806

UMass Chan department or group

  • Search for a word or phrase:
    • dc.contributor.department:"radiology"
    • dc.contributor.department:"center for integrated primary care"
  • Use the UMass Chan Affiliations browse menu in the sidebar

Title

  • Search for words or a phrase in the title:
    • dc.title:"COVID-19" AND dc.title:"obesity"
    • dc.title:"mental health"
  • Use the Titles browse menu in the sidebar

Document Type

  • dc.type:"dataset"
  • dc.type:"doctoral dissertation"
  • dc.type:"poster"
  • dc.type:"preprint"
  • There are many other Document Types. To see a list of valid Document Types, click on Document Types in the Browse menu in the sidebar.

Recent additions to the repository

  • dc.date.accessioned:"2022" (items added in 2022)
  • dc.date.accessioned:"2022-10" (items added in October 2022)
  • dc.date.accessioned:"2022-10-18" (items added on October 18, 2022)

Advanced search

  • The advanced search page allows you to specify the Community you wish to search. You can use filters to limit your search results by clicking on the “add filters” link. You may add more than one filter by clicking on the “+” link.
  • Next to “Go” you will see the Show Advances Filters option. Clicking this link will show you to the Advanced Search functionality.
  • In the text box use the same keyword search tactics from the simple search combined with Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT). Select the Community you wish to search from in the menu next to the search box. Below the search box is where you will find the option to add one or more filters.