Search - an introduction

SEARCH HELP

The search tool lets you search the system using multiple criteria. Usually you arrive at the search results page by doing a quick search from the search box in the upper right corner of every page, or from the Explore page.

You can search by any of these criteria:

Text

You can search for anything in the system with a name or description that either contains or does not contain particular text. If you want to search for a piece of text that starts with a particular prefix, you can add a "*" character to your text.

Rating

You can search for items in the system that match or are greater than or less than a given rating.

Title

Searching by title is just like searching by text, but only searches the names of the items.

Metadata

This searches for text in the FGDC metadata fields associated with the items.

Created

Lets you search for items created on, before, or after a certain date.

Last modified

Lets you search for items last modified on, before, or after a certain date.

Type

Lets you restrict your search to either datasets, people, or snapshots.

Location of data

Lets you define an area of intersection that the results must match. Click on the "Geographic Area" button to pop up a widget that lets you set the area you want to search. There are multiple ways to set the area of interest. You can simply pan and zoom the map to the area you want, or you can click one of the two "Refine area" widgets. The first one lets you draw a box defining the area you want. The second lets you pick a dataset in your library. If you pick a dataset, its bounding box will be used to set the area of interest. Once you have set the area of interest, click the "Set This Filter Area" button to close the map widget.

Classifier

Lets you search for items that match a particular classification vocabulary. This feature is hierarchical: if you pick a more general category, things with more specific classifications will also be found.

To add additional rules, use the plus button at the right of the search rule section. To remove a rule, click the minus button next to it. To search, press the search button. To sort the results, you can use the "SORT BY" menu.

Your most recent search is always available from the library drawer in the Visualization Tool.