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Search Help

There is a single search box to access all BCI data. This searches across the text in all the records for all collections and results in a list of collections. You can page through the results or click on the name of a specific collection to view the full index entry. There are two options you can use to control search behaviour:

• Natural Language Search Selecting This option uses MySQL Full-Text matching to carry out the search. This is the preferred search method if you are looking for more than a single word match. An attempt is made to sort the search results by their overall relevance to what you have typed. Generally the more you type the greater the number of results returned but the better the match of the first few records in the list. Searching for single short words in natural language mode may result in no results even if those words exist in the database. If this option is not checked then plain matching is carried out. This is the preferred search method if you are looking for a particular word or part of a word. The words you type are ANDed together. The more words you type the few results are returned.
• Just Physical Collections Selecting this option restricts the results to collections that are not scored as being located within another collection (such as a sub-collection) or virtual (such as the specimens of a particular collector spread between physical collections). Keep this option checked if you are looking for a collection you know to be extant.

Further to these main options there are three special searches.

• Recently Modified This search lists the last 100 collections to have their data modified. You can access it either by clicking on the option in the menu bar or by searching for the key phrase '@RECENTLY_MODIFIED'.
• Recently Created This search is similar to the recently modified search but lists the 100 most recently added collections. The key phrase for the search is '@RECENTLY_CREATED'.
• Search by Code This search allows you to find collections that use a particular code (abbreviation or acronym). You can access it via the menu item or by search for the key phrase '@CODE:<code>' where <code> is the code you are looking for. An example is '@CODE:RNG' which will find the University of Reading Herbarium.

Why not try searching now?