The General search allows you to search the entire database of journal articles and conference papers.
This will search across the following searchable fields in the records: Journal, Article, Conference, Paper and Alternative Titles, Author(s), Editor(s), Publisher and Conference data, such as Keywords, Venue and sponsor(s). In addition, an 'All Fields' search will across 'Abstract' data.
Search on the complete title, or significant words from the title (in any order):
or
The search engine automatically searches for articles/papers that contain all your search terms, in any order. To search for a phrase, such as 'tropical forests', enclose the term in double quotes:
would find all articles/papers where tropical forests and climate change appear in the title as phrases
Authors' names always appear in the format
The search engine will ignore commas and full stops.
You can just search on the surname or surnames if you do not know the initials:
will search for articles whose authors include both Tomas and Campbell.
If you wish to include initials, enclose your search term in quotes, with the surname first follow by the initial(s) which must be separated by spaces:
will search for articles by R. A. Johnson
The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) are unique numbers added to new books and journals respectively. If you know the 10 digit ISBN of a conference's proceedings or 8 digit ISSN of a journal this can be a quick and effective way of searching for it. You do not need to leave any spaces or enter any hyphens between the numbers as the search engine simply ignores them e.g. the ISSN of American Economic Review is 0002-8282 so you would search for:
00028282NOTE: Not all conference proceedings and journals will have an ISBN or ISBN.
You can limit your search to a particular year or years with the Year published field e.g.
1995 would search for all articles/papers published in 1995Note you cannot search on year alone, you must enter a search term in at least one other field.
Conference search includes searches for papers and reports from conferences, congresses, workshops and symposia.
Search only for conference papers, by paper title, author, keywords, conference details (conference name, sponsor, venue and date held) and ISBN.
This will search across all of the searchable fields in the conference records. These include: Conference Title, Keywords, Venue, Date and Sponsor(s); Paper Title, Author(s) and Publication information such as Editor(s).
See the General Title Search help for information on searching by title.
See the General Author Search help for information on searching for author(s).
Keywords are assigned to each conference (not individual conference papers) by the British Library. They can be indivdual words or phrases e.g construction or human friendly systems or materials science. If you wish to search for a phrase you must enter the term in quotes e.g.
"human friendly systems"The search box is for entering conference name, sponsor, venue and date held. This is particularly useful if you cannot remember the name of the conference, but can remember when and where it was held. For example, to search for all conferences held in Manchester in July 1997, type:
manchester jul 1997A conference may be sponsored by one or many bodies. These may be entered in full or abbreviated. To search for all conferences sponsored by European Physical Society in 1995 type the following:
"european physical society" 1995The venue is often given as just the city or the town and the country. Venues in the USA are often given as town and state, the state being indicated by the state code:
New York, N.Y
The date is often given as the year and the month:
2003: Sep
In the full citation the record will include the conference date and the year as separate fields.
The editor(s) of the published conference proceedings or the journal.
You can search on the editor(s) in the 'All fields' box, but the search will not be solely on the editor(s) field.
The ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is a unique number added to new books. If you know the 10 digit ISBN of a conference's proceedings this can be a quick and effective way of searching for it. You do not need to leave any spaces or enter any hyphens between the numbers as the search engine simply ignores them e.g. the ISBN of the proceedings of the Online Information 2000 conference is 1-90087-153-X so you would search for:
190087153XNOTE: Not all conference proceedings will have an ISBN.
This will search across all of the searchable fields in the records. In addition, 'Abstract' data is also searched when conducting an 'All Fields' search. The searchable fields are included below, plus publication frequency and language.
See the General Title Search help for information on searching by title.
See the General Author Search help for information on searching author(s).
This should be the title of the journal as it was when published (journal titles often change over time).
Search for a word or words from the title (in any order) or use quotation marks to search for a phrase or the complete title:
A list of the journals covered in Zetoc is available. You can use this list to cut and paste the title of the journal into the search box.
The ISSN (International Standard Serial Number) is a unique number given to each journal title. This displays in the format 0002-8282, but when searching you do not need to leave any spaces or enter any hyphens between the numbers:
NOTE: Not all journals will have an ISSN.
Search on this if you wish to browse through the table of contents of a particular issue of a journal. Enter the volume number or the volume and issue number in the field:
would find Volume 12 Issue 5. Note that the volume and issue information must be entered in the same order they appear in the records; that is volume before issue. Some journals do not have volume numbers, in which case simply enter the issue number.
Search for the start page, end page or span of pages:
See the General Search Year Published help for information on limiting your search to a year or years.
The frequency of publication does not have a dedicated search box. To search for this, use the 'All fields' search box.
Frequency may be given as: Weekly: 31-60 issues per year, Fortnightly: 15-30 issues per year, Monthly: 9-14 issues per year, Bi-monthly: 5-8 issues per year, Quarterly: 4 issues per year, Thrice yearly: 3 issues per year, Irregular: frequency variable.
The journal publisher does not have a dedicated search box. To search for this, use the 'All fields' search box.
This is the dewey decimal classification, which is assigned to journals (rather than individual articles) by the British Library. The zetoc journals list provides the means to list journals that are available on Zetoc by dewey classification.
You can search on the dewey classification in the 'All fields' box, but the search will not be solely on the dewey field.
This is the Library of Congress subject classification system. Find out more about the system on the Library of Congress website.
You can search on the LC classification in the 'All fields' box, but the search will not be solely on the LC class field.
This is the shelfmark used by the British Library DSC to locate the item.
A brief summary of a journal article or conference proceeding.
You cannot input your own Boolean operators in Zetoc. The only operator is AND and this is implicit i.e if you input more than one word in the same search field, the search engine will automatically AND them. You cannot use parentheses either. This is a feature of the search engine.
You can use the truncation symbol * in Zetoc, but there is no wildcard character. The truncation symbol can only be used at the end of a word, not at the beginning. It must be preceded by at least the first 5 characters of the word, e.g.
hyppo*would find hyppocampal, hyppocampus, hyppocratic, hyppocrates etc.
When you have carried out at least one search you are offered the option to review your Search History. Selecting the History button gives you a search History listing details of all the searches you have carried out in the current session with the most recent searches shown first. Alongside your search term will be the nubmer of Hits (records retrieved), Sort order and Options e.g.
| Search | Hits | Search terms | Sort order | Options |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | 0 | general="fixed rate inflation" | Edit | |
| 2 | 356 | general=lung cancer, 1999 | sorted on reverse date | View, Email Records, Download, Edit |
| 1 | 17 | journal=american economic review, 82 | sorted on reverse date | View, Email Records, Download, Edit |
Under Options you will see up to three hypertext links:
The Zetoc service is funded by Jisc and the data provided by the British Library. For help please see the FAQs or contact the Helpdesk.
Email: help@jisc.ac.uk
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