How to Search for Publications Using Simple Search
Overview of using simple search
Our simple search tool is the easiest way to quickly search the National Service Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP) collection. The simple search features operates in the same manner as most common internet search engines.
- Enter your search terms in the box and press the search button to conduct a search of the entire collection.
- Below the Search box there are options to limit the search to documents published in a particular date range.
- Simply check the boxes of the conditions you wish to include in your search results and click the search button
Additional features of the simple search include:
EPA Publication number Search:
If you wish to conduct a simple search using an EPA publication number, your number must be in the proper format to insure a successful search.
- Remove the EPA prefix, all punctuation, space and non-alphanumeric characters before initiating the search.
- For example change EPA 600/R-04-030.A to 600R04030A
- Please be aware, due to the various numberings schemes utilized by the EPA over the years not all documents in the NEPIS collection follow the current EPA numbering format.
The Simple Search is limited by design to search for all the terms in the search box:
When entering more than one search word the NSCEP search engine will return documents that contain all the words in your search regardless of order or location with the document.
Simple Search is designed to automatically remove certain words that will prevent a successful search:
The NSCEP index does not track common words or “noise words” or "stop words" such as “an” and “the” which do not describe the content of a document. These words are removed from your search terms before the search is executed.
Simple search does not support search wild cards such as “*”.
Use date limiters to increase the speed and efficiency of retrieving your search results:
For example, if you know that the document was published in 2002, only check the 2000-2005 box.
When entering more than one search word in a simple search, NSCEP treats each word as a separate concept and displays documents that contain all of your search words:
There is no need to include “and” between terms. To restrict a simple search further, just include more terms or to limit your search terms to words which are sufficiently specific. When possible use uncommon words to retrieve documents with more focused results