The Catalog of U.S. Government Publications

Expert Search

The Expert Search uses the Common Command Language (CCL) to search for words or headings in several different indexes at once [Note: the search above is requesting all records with a SuDoc class of "I 29.2:" and with a base cutter of "B 14"]. Codes must be used to indicate the index to be searched--the full listing of codes is at the bottom of the page. The syntax of an Expert Search is: 

index = the code of the word index to be searched, such as 'wti' (words in title), 'wsu' (words in subject) etc. 

search term = is the word or phrase you are looking for. You can use truncation and masking (wildcard characters) operators here if required (e.g. 'national*' or 'wom!n'). 

Boolean operator = AND, OR, or NOT, used to combine multiple terms in the statements. 

If necessary, parentheses can be used to prioritize parsing of the command. 

Expert Search Example

To find records with "migratory birds" anywhere in the document title, and to find only records with a link to the online version of the publication, use:

will find all records with an electronic version of the publication that have the exact phrase, "migratory birds", in the title. 

will find all records having the format of "Book" and a legislative Bill Number of "55".

Note: Available item formats are

• BK = Books
• SE = Serial
• MP = Map
• CF = CD/DVD
• VM = Visual Materials
• MX = Mixed Media

Finds records created or updated in June 2014 that have ceased, which are continuing/integrating resources that no longer have new issues produced, are no longer updated, or a change in author or title has caused a successive entry record to be created.  Note that the record date will vary according to the time it was last updated by catalogers, and may not reflect the desired research date.