Public Documents Masterfile

Help Searching Public Documents Masterfile

Search Procedures

Public Documents Masterfile is a straightforward searching tool, using a relevancy-ranking search engine to retrieve and display the results of search requests.

Relevance

The search engine evaluates "relevance" not only by the number of occurrences of the search word(s) within each record, but also on the basis of the proximity of the search words to one another and on the significance of the fields within which the words are found.

Searching

To initiate a search, enter one or more words into the Word Search field and click the Search button.

The best search strategy, generally speaking, is to enter a word or short phrase (e.g., electoral college, taxes, revolution).

Boolean operators (and,or) are also available to limit searches, as well as Wild Card operators (* for multiple endings, ? for single character.)

Searches also can be narrowed by restricting the word search to exact word matches and to Limit by Date of publication.

Links to Full Text

Public Documents Mastefile also provides links to full text editions of many government publications, if available. In many cases, the text can be retrieved as text files, html files or PDF. Paratext does not maintain the servers for these files, so the availability of these documents may vary.

In addition, the word search defaults to selecting records containing all of the words specified in the word search field. The number of records selected can be increased by clicking on the option to select records containing any of the words.

Stop Words

Common words such as "a", "an", and "the" are included on a "stop word" list supplied to the search engine. Such words are ignored whenever a word search is performed.

Displays

The results of a search are first presented in the brief format, which provides a short list of matching records with up to 20 items per display page. The title of the item, its publication date, author, and other information (if available) is displayed and the results are presented in relevance order as determined by the search engine.

Navigation

Navigation through a multi-page results set is supported by NEXT PAGE and PREVIOUS PAGE buttons. Additional buttons are provided for initiating a new search, modifying a search, resequencing the records in the set, and for selectively saving a subset of the records in a new results set.

The full display shows the essential bibliographic record for one item.




	Help Searching Public Documents Masterfile Search Procedures Public Documents Masterfile is a straightforward searching tool, using a relevancy-ranking search engine to retrieve and display the results of search requests. Relevance The search engine evaluates "relevance" not only by the number of occurrences of the search word(s) within each record, but also on the basis of the proximity of the search words to one another and on the significance of the fields within which the words are found. *Searching* To initiate a search, enter one or more words into the Word Search field and click the Search button. The best search strategy, generally speaking, is to enter a word or short phrase (e.g., electoral college, taxes, revolution). Boolean operators (and,or) are also available to limit searches, as well as Wild Card operators (* for multiple endings, ? for single character.) Searches also can be narrowed by restricting the word search to exact word matches and to Limit by Date of publication. *Links to Full Text* Public Documents Mastefile also provides links to full text editions of many government publications, if available. In many cases, the text can be retrieved as text files, html files or PDF. Paratext does not maintain the servers for these files, so the availability of these documents may vary. In addition, the word search defaults to selecting records containing all of the words specified in the word search field. The number of records selected can be increased by clicking on the option to select records containing any of the words. *Stop Words* Common words such as "a", "an", and "the" are included on a "stop word" list supplied to the search engine. Such words are ignored whenever a word search is performed. *Displays* The results of a search are first presented in the brief format, which provides a short list of matching records with up to 20 items per display page. The title of the item, its publication date, author, and other information (if available) is displayed and the results are presented in relevance order as determined by the search engine. *Navigation* Navigation through a multi-page results set is supported by NEXT PAGE and PREVIOUS PAGE buttons. Additional buttons are provided for initiating a new search, modifying a search, resequencing the records in the set, and for selectively saving a subset of the records in a new results set. The full display shows the essential bibliographic record for one item. Copyright 2006 Paratext LLC. All Rights Reserved.

	The First Stop for Public Documents Research.