How do I search for a resource?

You can search for a record in a couple ways. On the front page there is a search box in which you can enter any keyword to search for a record in any of the three collections (Fish, Humboldt Bay, Larval). If you click on the search box on either the front page, or the search box on any other page, a dropdown select list will appear, allowing you limit your search to one of the three collections. Once you are on the results page, you can click on "Advanced Search" to narrow down your search with advanced search options.

What are the best search methods?

A number of tips should allow you to maximize your use of Search and Advanced Search:

1. Capitalization is irrelevant. For example, NASA is equivalent to nasa.
2. For phrase searching, enclose the words within double quotes (e.g., "Library of Congress").
3. To search for an exact number, place the number into quotes (e.g., "114,457"). This forces the search engine to find an exact match for that number.
4. For a string of words (e.g., University of Wisconsin), Search and Advanced Search assumes these words are joined by AND. Thus, it will match records with all the words occurring in the searched fields either together or individually.
5. Words or phrases can be prepended with a dash or a plus sign. A dash (e.g. -magnesium or -"potato chips") indicates that you don't want any results that contain that term. Conversely, words or phrases can be prepended with a plus sign (e.g. +magnesium or +"potato chips") to indicate that you require results to contain that term or phrase.
6. The results will be displayed in a descending order of relevance (most relevant items appear at the top of the results). Relevance is determined through a combination of word occurrence frequency and a weighted value of the metadata fields being searched. Word occurrence in the Title is weighted the heaviest. Alternate Title, Creator, Publisher, Classification, and Contributor are in the next lower tier of weight values. Occurrence in the URL and Description are given the lowest weight values.
7. After searching, the results list will contain hyper-linked fields for easy navigation.

What terms can I search for?

You can search for data in any of the fields that exist in the fish records. They are: Humboldt Collection Number (this is the unique number assigned to each record), Family, Genus, Species, Country, State, County, "Drainage, Lake or Ocean", Collection Date, Collection Locality, Latitude, Longitude, Field Number, Spec (number of specimens), Preservative, Collector, Identifier, Notes, Description, Date of Record Creation.

Should I log out when I'm finished?

In order to protect information specific to your user account, you should log out of the site each time you finish using it. The system has a time out that will automatically log you out if you are not active for three hours. Note that just closing your browser window will not log you out.