Database Searching: Field Searching

Scope

• Field searching involves locating desired records by searching on specific Fields such as Author, Title, ISBN, and so forth.
• This can speed searching because you are requiring the database software to look through only the indexes of the fields you are searching.
• Field searching is most precise when you are searching for numbers such as ISBN, CODEN, ISSN, and other numbers that are unique to single Items.

Examples:

• AltaVista Simple Search (http://www.altavista.com)
  • Click on the word Help.
  • Scroll down the Help Web page to the table titled Special Syntax.
  • These are the specific fields you can search on in the AltaVista database because the the words in those parts of each Web page stored in the AltaVista database have been indexed.
  • Try a field search in AltaVista Simple Search:
    • +title:library +title:technology
      • The above is a search of the title fields of Web pages.
  • Try a field search in AltaVista Advanced Search:
    • text:((library and technology) near future)
• Amazon Books (http://www.amazon.com)
  • Using your Web browser, go to the Amazon.com online bookstore at http://www.amazon.com.
  • Click on the Books tab.
  • Click on the Search button.
  • Here you are given several fields (indexes) you can search.

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