Distributed Search Help
| Table of Contents | |
|---|---|
| General Information Search More about Searching |
Browse the Geothermal Legacy Collection Obtaining Documents Contact Us |
General Information
The Distributed Search provides a searchable gateway that integrates diverse geothermal resources into one location. It accesses databases of recent and archival technical reports in order to retrieve specific geothermal information - converting earth's energy into heat and electricity, and other related subjects.
See About, Help/FAQ, Related Links, or the Site Map, for more information about the Geothermal Technologies Legacy Collection .
Search
The Distributed Search provides you with the choice of which combination of distributed resources to search and which fields -- author, title, full record and publication date (where possible), to search.
The Distributed Search uses Distributed Explorit™, the search engine from Deep Web Technologies [exit federal site] which will "talk" to each of the search engines of the targeted resources, causing them, in turn, to query their sites or databases. The results are returned and may include full text, bibliographic citations, and other types of material from the selected resources.
The Distributed Search utilizes the function of the individual server and database searches. All search capabilities and options may not be available for each database. Information on each database and a link to each site may be found by clicking on the database name on the Distributed Search page.
The resulting document titles or "hits" from your Distributed Search query will be segmented by database. You may specify how many items you wish to have displayed from each database, up to 250. However, there are cases in which a target database has its own rules about how many documents can be returned. In those cases, the target's rules override the functionality of the Distributed Search.
Distributed searching, by necessity, displays the differences between databases. It sorts your results by target resource. This will enable you to see the differences between sites.
More about Distributed Searching
- You decide which databases to search.
- Remember, you can search all databases by selecting All.
- By selecting a database link, you may view the database - you may even choose to perform your search there.
- Then type in your key word(s) to the "Author", "Title" or "Full Record" fields (no need for quotes, we phrase-search by default), and select
. - You'll get results ranked in relevancy clusters, or grouped in a way most likely to match your search query.
- Unlike many search engines, our results are retrieved in real time, so it could take a minute.
- Our progress bar will time out in 50 seconds.
- This means that if a particular database is running slow, you may not get all those results during that search session.
Not Yet Satisfied? Try this:
- Maybe you'd rather see your results listed by the source that sponsored the research. Select
. - Now you can zero in on your area of interest.
- You can also select
to
explore deeper into each agency's resources. - Select the individual database or website to go directly to that site.
Need Help Navigating?
Once you've got your results:
- Select the linked title or PDF logo
to
view a specific record or document OR select the checkboxes of items you wish to view. 
selects all your results for further viewing on our
Marked Records page.
presents a list of results you marked during the
current session.
will delete all previous
marks. Use this on a routine basis to erase marked items from the session.
sends you back to your search page. Then you can
select to begin a new search.
lets you search directly from the results page.
Explore your results on the Marked Records page
gives you one seamless, scrollable list, displaying an
expanded version of all selected documents.- indicates a full-text PDF is available for that result.
- clears all your marked records. Records are automatically cleared after viewing.
- returns you to your original result list.
General Search tips
- Full-text searching is available when supported by the agency's database.
- You'll know the full-text PDF is available when you see the PDF icon .
- "And" and "Or" operators are generally supported (for example, searching drilling or logging returns results with either or both words).
- There's no need to use quotes for phrases - we phrase-search by default.
- Wildcard character * (asterisk) is supported in several, but not all, database (for example, geo* will find both geothermal and geology).
- Search is not case-sensitive (for example, WELL , Well , and well will produce the same results).
More about your results
- Results are linked to expanded information.
- Default results are returned in QuickRank™ order.
- Results may be displayed by Agency source, if desired.
- Total number of search results may be restricted by the database.
Additional QuickRank™ Features
- Our special QuickRank™ formula filters results, sending you the most relevant returns.
- This means that the number of QuickRank™ returns may differ from the number of raw returns from the individual agency listing, which aren't filtered by QuickRank™.
- Results will be returned in relevancy clusters:
indicates
very high relevancy, 
indicates high
relevancy, 
indicates
medium high relevancy, 
indicates low
relevancy. - Our QuickRank™ filter is based on placement of key words: If your key word is not in a prime location in the document, likely the result won't be ranked.
- Your results will contain top tier databases in terms of relevancy. But, you can also visit for further investigation.
Obtaining Documents
Many items within the Geothermal Technologies Legacy Collection site are provided in downloadable full-text. However, if you cannot obtain the full-text you seek on this site, please check related or distributed links for additional information. There you may find document ordering information.
Contact Us
To send comments and inquiries fill out our comment form. Additional questions may be sent to geothermalcomments@osti.gov.
