A Very Brief GeoRef Tutorial

Let's say you want to find a particular publication. You know the following:
1) The author is Hamilton,
2) it is in a U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper,
3) it was published sometime between 1960 to 1965,
4) and you think Antarctica is in the title.

There are several ways to search for this item:

1) Use the "Quick Search"

Type this: hamilton and antarctica and professional paper and 196?

In many cases, this sort of search will be sufficient.

2) Use the "Advanced Search"

In one box, type "hamilton" and select the "Author, AU=" from the drop-down menu.
In another box, type "antarctica" and select "Title, TI=" from the drop-down menu.
In another box, type "professional paper" and select "Source, SO=" from the drop-down menu.
In the "date range" drop-down boxes, select 1960 to 1965. (For older years, a "work-around" is currently necessary, in which case it is better to use the Quick Search or Command Search modes. For example, in those modes, SO=196? searches for the publication years 1960 - 1969).

This is what the search looks like:

You should get just a few records, and the one you want should be there if your input information was correct (right date range, author, etc.). If there is a chance that it should be antarctic in instead of antarctica, you could use antarctic* to search for both.

3) Use the "Command Search"

Click "Search Tools", then "Command Search". Then, either type this: AU=hamilton and TI=antarctica and SO=professional paper and SO=196?, or use the drop-down menu to insert field codes and type in the terms.Use Boolean operators (and, or, not), parentheses ( ) to group search operations, and wildcards (* or ?) to refine your search. Other limitors are also available such as date range, language, etc. For this search, you could have used the "Date Range" drop-down menu instead of "so=196?".

Tips:
For USGS documents, the report number is in the SO (source) field and the RP (report number) field. For example, you could search for Professional Paper number 0456-B by using "RP=0456-b".

GeoRef searches via CSA are not case sensitive.

Sometimes less is better: You could have typed "U.S. Geological Survey"...but could there be a space between U. and S.?...or is it USGS? You can get around these questions by simply typing "professional paper".

Other Search Tools in the Command Search Mode include Indexes, Thesaurus, History, Combine Searches, and Alerts.

For more help, go to the "Help and Support" link on the CSA-GeoRef site. If you would like some individual help, come see the Geology Librarian.