ASFA Databases: Search Tips & Strategies

Field Name

Label

Explanation

Abstract

AB

We use the journal-provided abstract with little or no modification, or have members from our editorial team write an abstract from scratch, drawing on the article’s text and concepts. Our team’s goal is to make the article’s point as clearly and succinctly as possible.

Searching for the exact phrase put search terms in quotes.

Accession Number

AN

Searches the unique ProQuest Document ID or the ASFA accession number for articles and documents.

All Fields (Anywhere)

ALL

Search in all fields in the citation and abstract.

Alternate Title

OTI

Use to search non-English Titles.

Author

AU

Use to find documents written by a particular author. 

Author Affiliation

AF

Use this field to retrieve documents associated to a particular institution.

Classification

CC

The classification codes and descriptions are broad subject headings that are specific to various databases. Classification Codes are a fast way to precisely target a search by topic, geographical area, or article type.

Conference

CF

This field provides the name of the conference and where and when it occurred.

Corporate author

CA

Used to search the Corporate/Institutional author.

Digital Object Identifiers

DOI

Search for documents with DOIs using the DOI search. For the search always put the phrase in quotes to find the relevant document.

Document Title

TI

Locates the occurrence of search words in the title of the article.

Editor

ED

Used to search Scientific coordinator.

Environmental Regime

ER

Used to search for the Environmental Regime.

ISBN

ISBN

This search field looks for the 12 and 13 digit International Standard Book Number (ISBN), where available. Hyphens are optional.

ISSN

ISSN

This search field looks for the eight digit International Standard Serial Number (ISSN), where available. Hyphens are optional.

Keyword/identifiers

IF

To search the researchers’ keywords, or identifiers, or vernacular terms of species.

Language of Publication

LA

Used to search the Language of Publication AND the Summary Language.

Location

LOC

Search for a specific geographic area or location.

Notes

NT

Use to find the resource location before Feb 2011. After Feb 2011 the resource location is within the URL.

Others numbers

NU

Used to search the reports (report, number, document number, patent number). Note that all reports don't necessarily have a number.

Publication Date

PD

PD(YYYYMMDD) or PD(YYYYMM) or PD(YYYY)

Publication Title

PUB

Used to search for a specific publication.

Publication Year

PY

Use to find a specific publication year

Publisher

PB

Used to retrieve documents from a specific publisher.

Subfile

SFL

ASFA is actually one big database that is a collection of five subfile databases.

Subject Heading (all)

SU

Use the subject search field to look for articles about a specific subject. It will retrieve anything to do with the subject keyword being searched. For example, doing a search for the subject heading of “habitat”, it would find articles if the subject was habitat, habitat selection, habitat factors or habitat improvement.

Searching the SU field will also include a search in the single fields Keyword/identifier and Taxonomic term.

Summary Language

SL

Used to search the summary language in a specific language.

Supplemental Data

SD

Before February 2011, this field was called NOTES

Taxonomic Term

TXTERM

Search for a field of science that encompasses description, identification, nomenclature, and classification.

Update

UD

Used to retrieve all records added during a specific database update. The structure of the field is YYYYMM. Searches also in the field “Last updated”.

URL

RL

Used to search for the URL of an institutional repository.

Volume

VO

Used to search for the volume of a resource.