eCommons: Cornell's Digital Repository: Searching and browsing eCommons

Where to search

The search box is located in the upper right corner of the home page. Advanced search can be reached via the results page after you perform a simple search. You will see options to search within filters on the left by clicking the (+) symbol and to search for collections in the main search bar- click "all of DSpace" and search for community you are seeking. You can then search within that chosen community. 

eCommons is fully indexed by Google and other search engines.

How searching eCommons works.

Default search:

The default eCommons search is keyword, and full text. This means the search engine is looking for your search term(s), or variants, in all of the metadata (title, author, etc.) AND in the full text of documents on eCommons. 

If you do not have a specific search phrase, using multiple keywords will refine results and potentially generate more fruitful results. Search results are displayed in order of relevance by default.

Advanced Search:

You can structure a multi-part question by putting together a series of filters. Available filters appear as a browseable list to the left. 

Search tips

• All searches on eCommons use word stemming, so common suffixes will be included in the results (for example, a search for work will include results for worked and worker).

• Phrase searching is supported (quotes around a phrase will search for the entire phrase instead of its component parts. eg: "United States" will search for the phrase "United States" instead of "United" AND "States").

• In general, to get more results, perform a full text search. That is, do not filter metadata field(s) (such as author, subject, etc.) to search. 

Limitations of searching

Common Roman accents are accepted, but languages that use non-Roman characters will be presented with a uniform, phonetic title, a title in translation or both.

Basic search

Enter search terms into the search box. 

Filtering search results

Search results can be filtered by community by clicking on the "all of dspace" button next to the search bar and searching the community of interest.  Results can also be filtered using the facets to the left of the results: Author, Subject, Date issued, Type, and items that have files.

Sorting search results

Search results can be sorted by clicking the "Sort By" drop down menu below the filters to the left of the results list. The default sort order is relevance. Alternatives include Title, Issue date, and accessioned date, and they can be ordered in ascending or descending order.

You can also increase or decrease the number of results displayed on the page.

Using AND, OR, NOT and quotation marks to broaden or narrow a search

The boolean operators AND, OR and NOT may be used to broaden or narrow a search:

• AND will narrow a search, returning results that include both terms
• OR will broaden a search, returning results that include either term
• NOT will narrow a search, returning results that include the term before "NOT" but excluding results with the term that follows it.

Enclosing a search phrase withing quotation marks will return only results containing that phrase.

Limiting search to a specific field

If you know the name of the metadata field you wish to search, you may limit search to just that field by typing the field name, a colon, and the search term. For example, to search for items authored by Hans Bethe, search dc.contributor.author:Bethe. Some common metadata fields:

• dc.contributor.author (ex: dc.contributor.author:Smith)
• dc.description.abstract
• dc.contributor.chair (for theses and dissertations)
• dc.contributor.committeeMember (for theses and dissertations)

Browse eCommons

eCommons can be browsed by communities and collections, issue date, author, title, subject, or type.

Browsing by communities and collections

Communities and sub-communities provide the hierarchical structure for collections in eCommons, with collections containing items (content). You can browse the hierarchy by selecting "Communities & collections" under the Browse menu. Expand communities and sub-communities by clicking the "+" sign, if one is displayed.

Browsing by issue date, author, title, subject, or type

You may also browse the entire repository by issue date, author, title, subject, or type. Once you have chosen a facet to browse by, you can start to narrow results by jumping to a particular year (for issue date), jumping to a point in the index (for author, title, or subject), or by selecting a particular type.

These browse-by options are also available from the page of individual communities, sub-communities, and collections.