Using Indexes

The indexes available for this database are listed below. Each index enables you to look up, select, and search for variations of terms indexed in the database. Refer to the SPIRS Help for specific information about using indexes.

Using the Free Text Index (General Index)

The Free Text Index (General Index in WebSPIRS) contains an alphabetical list of terms used to index the non-limit database fields. The Free Text Index allows you to look up, select, and search for variations of a term. It 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 terms used in indexing the database, searching directly from this index will always yield results. The following fields are included in the Free Text Index for this database:

AB, AD, AN, AU, DE, ED, EML, GE, IB, IS, KW, OD, OS, OT, PB, SO, TI

Using Field-Specific Indexes

Field-specific indexes are available for some database fields. Each field-specific index contains an alphabetical list of the terms appearing in an individual field. As with the Free Text Index, this enables you to look up, select, and search for variations of terms in the database. The advantage of a field-specific index is that you know where the terms appear in the database. For example, if you look up "book" in the Publication Type Field-Specific Index, you know that all occurrences of the term are as a kind of document.

The following database fields have field-specific indexes. Note that these fields are also limit fields.

Country of Publication (CP)

Language of Article (LA)

Language of Summary (LS)

Physical Description (PD)

Publishers Item Identifier (PI)

Publication Type (PT)

Publication Year (PY)

References (RF)

Subject Description Codes (SC)

Update (UD)