The Publications Database is made available through use of Research Information System's Reference Web Poster software. This software has enabled us to provide you with this searchable database; however, there are a few "quirks" you should be aware of when searching. We believe your search results will be improved if you scan through the following topics:

We have chosen Advanced Search as the default option. Why? Because Quick Search only allows you to locate references by searching the following indexed fields: author, keyword, periodical, and publication date. To perform a search in fields such as title or abstract (non-indexed) fields, or to perform a combination search of terms located in both indexed and non-indexed fields, you must use the Advanced Search feature.

Advanced or Quick Search options will both work when searching for author names. We recommend you search by last name only, leaving out any first initials or first names. At times, this may give you more hits than you want, but we have found that using initials or first names is tricky and will not give you the best results.

As used here, Keywords mean only the terms that we have used to index our publications. You can view our keyword list. When using Quick Search, a multi word keyword phrase, such as "lake trout", needs to be surrounded by quotation marks. When using Advanced Search, DO NOT use quotation marks.

DO NOT use Quick Search to search for non-keyword terms and phrases (such as words appearing in the title or abstract). It simply won't work! Use Advanced Search when you wish to search for a non-keyword term or phrase. From the pulldown menu of field options, choose "non-indexed field".

Both Advanced and Quick Search assume wild card searches after any string of 2 or more characters. For example, if you search the Keyword field for the characters fish, the result will be the same as if you used all terms that begin with fish, such as fisheries, fishes, fishing, etc. You do not have to type the asterisk. In fact, do not type it. The asterisk character is literal and will be searched for as such.

Once you have done a search and found some references, you will see them listed with a stack-of-paper icon - - and a check box next to each reference. If you click on the stack-of-paper icon, you will see the entire record, including the abstract, if one is available. From the full record view, you can also tell if we have copies of the publication available for distribution. If the Note field says OP, we no longer have copies to send to you.

Once you have done a search and found some references, you will see them listed with a stack-of-paper icon - - and a check box next to each reference. You can mark references of interest by clicking on the check box. Marked records can later be printed or downloaded. Marked records are lost after 20 minutes of no program activity.

The easiest way to print records is right from the screen on which you are viewing them. To print all marked records, simply click on Show Marked List, and print the page or pages with your records. If you have multiple pages of records, you might find it easiest to copy and paste records to your word processing program.

Reference Web Poster makes it possible for you to export marked references directly to a Reference Manager or ProCite database. In order to do this, you MUST have the RIS Export Plug-In on your computer. You can find out more about the Plug-In under the Export option on the search screen. You can export to a text file to import into other bibliographic programs, such as EndNote, with the Medlars or RIS formats. Help for this is also available under the Export option on the search screen.

Extensive help is available by clicking the Help button - - on the search screen.