Using Indexes

This database contains a free text index as well as field-specific indexes.

Using the Free Text Index

The Free Text Index contains a sorted list of all the terms that were used to index the database. It allows you to look up, select, and search for variations of a term. The Free Text Index is particularly useful if you are uncertain of the spelling of a term or how the terms appear in the database. Since the Free Text Index shows all terms that have been used in indexing, your search will always yield results.

Refer to the SPIRS Help for more information on using the Index.

Using Field-Specific Indexes

A field-specific index contains an alphabetical list of the terms that occur in an individual field. As with the Free Text Index, this allows you to look up, select, and search for variations of a term. The advantage of a field-specific index is that you know where the terms occur in the database. For example, if you look up "book" in the Document Type Field-Specific Index, you know that all occurrences of the term are as a type of document.

In addition to the free text Index, the following database fields have field-specific indexes. Also note that the fields are limit fields.

Accession Number (AN)

Document Type (DT)

Publication Year (PY)

Target Audience (TA)