First, you must indicate which information source you wish to search. The current options are "The National Academies" or "National Acadmies Press." "The National Academies" includes all information on the National Academies, the National Acadmies Press, and the National Science Resource Center at the Smithsonian Institution Web site. "National Acadmies Press" will allow you to search only information hosted by the NAP. Click on the appropriate radio button and begin your search. If you do not select one, the search will default to "The National Academies."

Types of Search:

• Basic - The most basic search you can perform is by entering a word and only that word will be searched. For example, if you enter "sciences", only documents with the term "sciences" in them will be retrieved. If you enter more than a single word, but don't use quotation marks, the search engine will automatically search for documents with all of the words entered. This is the same as using the Boolean operator AND. Please note that the search engine is not case sensitive.
• Phrase - To search two or more words in a row, you need to put quotation marks in front of and at the end of the phrase. If you wish to search "World Wide Web," your search phrase would be "World Wide Web."
• Boolean - You can use Boolean operators to modify the relationships between words in the search criteria. For example, to find items related to computers, but not the Internet, type "computers NOT Internet" in the search box.
• Single-character Wildcard - If you don't know the exact spelling of a word or name (i.e., "Does the President of the National Academy of Engineering spell his name 'Wolf' or 'Wulf'?"), you would place a question mark ("?") in the place where the unknown letter would appear. For example, the query "w?lf" will retrieve all documents with the word "wolf" or "Wulf" in them.
• Multiple-character Wildcard - You can use the multiple-character wildcard (the asterisk, *), to find similar words. For example, typing "Europ*" results in a search for all words beginning with Europ, but having different endings (Europe, European).