• SIMPLE SEARCH
• ADVANCED SEARCH

Selecting Search Mode

Before entering your search term, select either "Find Title Abstract or Keyword" or "Find Document Number". The "Title, Abstract or Keyword" search is the default selection. See "Title, Abstract or Keyword Search" and "Document Number Search" below for more detail.

The "Title, Abstract or Keyword Search" will search for terms in the Document Title, Document Scope/Abstract, Committee, Standards Developer and Keywords.

Complete Terms

The "Title, Abstract or Keyword Search" employs stemming, which means that if the term entered is a complete word that is also the base for other words, records containing that base word and its variants will be returned. For example, if you search on "Hazard", you will find records that include the term "Hazardous", "Hazards", etc.

Automatic "and" Searches

By default the "Title, Abstract or Keyword Search" only returns records that include all of your search terms; there is no need to include "and" between terms. The order that you use for the search terms does not impact the success of the search results.

Exact Phrase Searching

If you wish to find records that contain exact phrases, place your search phrase in quotation marks.

Capitalization

Text searches are NOT case sensitive. All letters, regardless of how you type them, will be understood as lower case. For example, searches for "Programming", "programming" and "PROGRAMMING" will all return the same results.

When searching on document number, you may search on the whole document number or any contiguous part of the document number. For best results, you should search on the "core" of the document number. The "core" is the main part of the document number without prefixes, such as a developer acronym, suffixes or a year date. Here are some examples of the "core" document number:

If you click on the "Advanced Search" link, you will be presented with many additional options for searching. The details of this search are as described below:

Search Terms

Enter the terms for which you want to search.

Fields to Search

Choose the fields in which you want to search. The Document Number choice limits your search to the document number field; the Title choice limits your search to the title; and the Full Record choice searches the following fields: document number, title, abstract, committee and keywords.

The default setting for the search is "All Words" which means that only records that contain all of the words in the title text box will be found. Use the drop down list below the text box to change this if you wish. The choices are:

• All Words
• Any Words
• Exact Phrase
• Boolean Search

All Words will return records that only have all the terms in the search field. For example, if the search terms are personal and computer, searching Titles and choosing All Words means that both words must be in the title.

Any Words will return records that have one of the terms. Using the example from above, any record that had the word personal or the word computer would be returned.

Exact Phrase will return records where the words occur as typed. Using the example from above, only records where the phrase "personal computer" is in the title will be returned.

Other Controls

Use the remaining controls to narrow your search by developer or to limit the number of records returned. You can also specify how many results you would like to display per page. These features can help you focus on the most relevant records. Developers are listed by their acronyms. The full name of the developer is displayed when the acronym is selected. One developer can be selected at a time.

The check boxes also make it possible to search broad classes of documents not limited to standards. By using these checkboxes you can broaden or reduce the scope of a search.