The WEDC Knowledge Base
Help using the search tool
Notes on using the search engine
- AND is the default operator. Searching for slow sand will search for results that have both slow and sand anywhere within a record.
- OR can be used to retrieve records that include either word ‘A’ or ‘B’ by typing uppercase OR between the terms
- NOT can be used to retrieve records that include word ‘A’ but not ‘B’ by typing uppercase NOT between the terms
- Searching is not case sensitive, i.e., WATER will match water.
- Unless a truncation operator (asterisk *) is appended to the word, the search will only match whole words i.e. pra will not match practical but pra* will retrieve all words with this stem, including practical.
- To search for a phrase the words must be enclosed in quotation marks. Note that "slow sand" will match slow sand filtration, but not slow draining sand.
- A wildcard operator (?) can be used within a word where the spelling is uncertain e.g. stabili?ation, where either an s or z is possible.
Basic search
This is the simplest method that searches ‘All materials’ and ‘Everywhere’. Enter search term/s separated by spaces and select ‘Go’. AND is implied so it is not necessary to type that in. You may enter terms, dates and/or author’s family name.
Advanced search
Everywhere
This can be used to search anywhere within a record. This is the best 'catchall' field and will be the one most commonly used.
Author
- To retrieve any author with the surname Smith - in the Everywhere or Author field, type in the author's surname (family name) e.g., Smith
- If you are unsure of spelling type in the first few letters of the name followed by the truncation operator *.e.g. Mzu*.
- Any part of the author field may be searched, so it is possible to type the forename only, e.g., Deepa will retrieve Deepa Narayan. This is useful when you are unsure of the sequence of names.
- To be more precise, you can type the surname followed by a comma, a space, and then an initial: e.g., "Smith, M" will retrieve records indexed Smith, M. The inverted commas are necessary.
- Using the truncation operator *, "Smith M*" will retrieve Smith, M.; Smith, M.D.; and Smith, Mike
Title
There are two main options:
- The first few words of the title may be entered, e.g., environmental health (to find 'Environmental Health Engineering in the Tropics') – this will retrieve any title containing these two words. A quicker, more selective option is to enter two distinctive words e.g. environmental tropics.
- It is also possible to search a consecutive word-string anywhere in the title, e.g., "in the tropics" (including the inverted commas).
Material Type
The default setting of All materials will allow searching of all publication types. Use the drop down menu to select other options.
- Book/Booklet/Report: all publications which have been classified according to Dewey Decimal Classification (DDC)
- CD: classified by DDC as above
- Conference: proceedings of conferences, symposia, workshops, etc., allocated year dates and sequential numbering (earlier ones classified by DDC). Please note that WEDC conferences are listed as a Series but can be searched as a Collection.
- Conference Paper: pdfs of individual WEDC conference papers
- Country file: country-specific items, e.g., development plans, consultants' reports, surveys, etc. Held sequentially according to ISO country codes
- Course: searchable listing of current WEDC learning programmes.
- DVD: classified by DDC as above
- Journal: held in alphabetic sequence. List of holdings only – please note that it is not possible to search the contents of these journals.
- Project: MSc or past short course projects produced by WEDC students. MSc dissertations currently retrievable as 'Project.MSc.WEM' and 'Project.MSc.WWE'.
- Series: technical report series such as those produced by UNESCO, FAO, etc. Held according to alphanumeric sequence. Please note that WEDC conferences are listed as a Series but can be searched as a Collection.
- Video: Sequentially numbered