A BRIEF GUIDE TO THE SPIRES-HEP DATABASE(via WWW) HEP is a joint project of the SLAC and DESY Libraries, with contributions from the Yukawa Inst. at Kyoto, KEK, CERN, Fermilab, SSCL and Serpukov. It includes SLAC Library preprint and report holdings since 1974, and all journal articles, etc., from the DESY High-Energy Physics Index (a comprehensive bibliographic tool produced at our sister laboratory in Hamburg, Germany). Also all SLAC documents from 1962. Serves as on-line catalog for SLAC Library and bibliographic search tool for particle physicists in 29 countries. Clone copies of HEP also run under SPIRES at DESY, KEK, and at the Yukawa Inst. The database is available remotely over BITNET via the QSPIRES server to all physicists on the Internet. 250,000 titles as of 1992. Expands at rate of 20,000 per year. Updated daily. ------------------------------------------------------------- COMMAND ABBREVIATIONS ------------------------------------------------------------- Most SPIRES command words may be abbreviated to the first 3 characters, i.e. FIND, FIN. Common exceptions are CLEAN (CLN), KEEP (KEEP) and CONTINUE (CONT). BACKUP BAC BROWSE BRO EXPLAIN EXP FIND FIN IN ACTIVE TYPE IN ACT TYP OUTPUT CLEAN CLEAR OUT CLN CLE OUTPUT CLEAN CONTINUE OUT CLN CONT SELECT SEL SHOW FORMATS SHO FOR SHOW SELECT SHO SEL SHOW SUBFILES SHO SUB TYPE TYP TYPE KEEP TYP KEEP TYPE SKIP TYPE SKI SUBFILE names cannot be abbreviated. SEARCH TERMS may be abbreviated as shown in each example or as shown in the SHO SEA TERMS listing. ------------------------------------------------------------- **7. SAMPLE SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- -> select HEP -> find a dorfan, d -Result: 121 DOCUMENTS -> and date after Dec 1989 -Result: 19 DOCUMENTS -> type pause -> find citation PRLTA,33,1406 and not author Richter -Result: 990 DOCUMENTS -> type pau -> browse topic HIGGS -> find tp HIGGS# and date after 1990 -Result: 347 DOCUMENTS -> sequence author -> spisend ### (where ### is someone"s e-mail address, i.e., Addis@slacvm.bitnet ------------------------------------------------------------- SELECT ------------------------------------------------------------- To choose a SPIRES database for searching: -> SEL(ECT) To change to another, simply select. -> SEL HEP -> SEL BOOKS Database names (called subfiles in SPIRES) cannot be abbreviated. To find out what databases are available: -> show subfiles [sho sub] -> show subfile like HEP [sho sub like HEP] To find the database currently selected: -> SHOW SELECT [sho sel] If you are searching from a 'SPIRES ONLY' account, a limited number of databases will be accessible. ------------------------------------------------------------- SHOW INDEXES (simple indexes and qualifiers) ------------------------------------------------------------- After a database has been selected, SHOW INDEXES to list the valid search terms: -> SEL HEP -> SHO IND Goal Records: DOCUMENT, DOCUMENTS, KEY Qualifier: D, DATE Qualifier: PPF-SUBJECT, PS, SCL Simple Index: A, AU, AUTHOR Simple Index: T, TI, TITLE ... etc. ÔGoal-recordsÕ are results of a search; e.g., -Result: 10 DOCUMENTS SIMPLE INDEX terms may be used in primary searching. QUALIFIER terms (DATE, PPF- SUBJECT) may only be used to narrow a previous result. Any listed term is valid for search. -> find xxxx -Result: # DOCUMENTS -> and xxxx Example: -> find title Z0 and date 1990 BUT NOT -> find date 1990 <Ñ(illegal search in HEP because date is a 'qualifier') ------------------------------------------------------------- IMPORTANT SEARCH TERMS ------------------------------------------------------------- LONG FORM SHORT FORM EXAMPLE AUTHOR A Fin a Prescott, C. FIRST-AUTHOR FA fin fa Prescott, c. TITLE T fin t aleph detector AFFILIATION AF fin af Rochester U. DATE D (qualifier, see above) fin af CERN & date 1992 CITATION C fin c ZEPYA,C44,15 COLLABORATION CN fin cn Mark-II Collaboration REPORT NUMBER R fin r SLAC-PUB-5000 PPF SUBJECT PS (qualifier, see above) fin t higgs & scl r EXPERIMENT EXP fin exp fnal-e-0741 TOPIC TP fin tp experimental results More examples: fin author amos, n. -Result: 22 DOCUMENTS -> fin fa amos, n -Result: 13 DOCUMENTS -> fin a amos, n and avila, c -Result: 6 DOCUMENTS -> fin a amos, n and avila, c and t rho -Result: 1 DOCUMENT -> Note that it is not necessary to repeat same search term. ------------------------------------------------------------- BEGIN A SEARCH (FIND) ------------------------------------------------------------- To start a search (and discard the results of any previous search), type: -> FIND -> FIND AF SLAC -Result: 8691 DOCUMENTS -> AND AF CERN -Result: 188 DOCUMENTS -> FIND AF CERN -Result: 15407 DOCUMENTS -> TYP PAU Until you reset the search with a FIND command, you are only adding to or subtracting from the previous result. In this example, to stop before you have seen all 15,407 records, type HE (for halt execution), and hit the RETURN or ENTER key. ------------------------------------------------------------- BACKUP ------------------------------------------------------------- You can back up one step at any time during a search (but not more than one): -> FIND T Z0# -Result: 672 DOCUMENTS -> AND DATE DEC 1989 -Result: 10 DOCUMENTS -> BACKUP -Result: 461 DOCUMENTS ------------------------------------------------------------- BOOLEAN SEARCH LOGIC (and, or, and not) ------------------------------------------------------------- AND (&) OR ( ) AND NOT (&~) -> fin a smith AND jones, m. -> fin a smith AND NOT jones, m. fin a smith OR jones, m. fin a smith & t photoproduction fin A Jones AND Smith OR Brown is grouped as A (Jones and Smith) or (Brown) -> fin A Brown OR Smith AND Jones is grouped as A (Brown or Smith) AND (Jones) Use parentheses to change processing order. Parens may be nested. Logical operators are processed left to right inside each set of parens, starting with inmost. -> fin A Jones AND (Smith OR Brown) -> fin A Jones & (Smith or (Brown & Astbury)) -> typ pau ------------------------------------------------------------- RIGHT TRUNCATION (#) , WILD CARD, and/or PREFIX SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- # is used as right truncation or 'wild card' sign in all simple indexes (author, affiliation, title, report no., topic, citation, experiment, etc.) -> FIND AUTHOR FEYN# or -> FIND T HADRON# MODEL# Above finds all title words with stem HADRON, i.e., hadron, hadrons, hadronic and stem MODEL, i.e., models, modelling, modelled. To check terms you will get with truncated search, browse (without #): -> bro t hadron # may be used multiply in title search as above, but singly in A, AF, TP, RN. -> FIND A SCHWAR# -> FIND TP TARGET, JET# Some indexes in other databases do not support truncated searching (#) but the ÔprefixÕ search can always be used instead. -> FIND AUTHOR PRE FEYN -> FIND R PRE HEPEC are equivalent to: -> FIND A FEYN# -> FIND R HEPEC# The report number and collaboration indexes support imbedded wild card searching. For example: -> FIN R JINR#89-144 -> FIN R JINR#89-122 will find JINR-E2-89-144 and JINR-P2-89-122 respectively. The # or Ôwild cardÕ stands for any character. -> FIN CN AACHEN#BEIJING finds 8 documents out of the 227 starting with collaboration name AACHEN.. It finds only those collaboration names beginning with AACHEN and containing BEIJING someplace within the remainder of the collaboration name. ------------------------------------------------------------- BROWSE ------------------------------------------------------------- To examine random terms in an index: -> BRO(WSE) -> BRO AUTHOR -> BRO TITLE To look at ALL terms in a particular alphabetic part of the index: -> BRO(WSE) -> BRO AUTHOR SMI -> BRO T REGGE -> BRO CODEN PHYSICAL To look at index from A to Z (or Z to A): -> BRO FIRST -> BRO FIRST AUTHOR -> BRO LAST A few items will be listed and SPIRES will ask whether you wish to continue: MORE? continue = YES, Y, OK no more = NO, N backwards = BACKWARD, B, DOWN, forwards = FORWARD, F, UP, + WARNING: you must answer before you can continue searching. One of common error is to start a search in response to 'MORE?' ------------------------------------------------------------- AUTHOR (A) SEARCH ---------------------------------------------------------- Author search may be phrased: -> FIND AUTHOR S. DRELL -> FIND A DRELL, S. -> FIND A S.D. DRELL -> FIND A DRELL Each example will find Sydney D.Drell. BEWARE: First and second examples would also find P.S. Drell. Third example (S.D. Drell) will not find S. Drell or Sid Drell. Fourth example (D. Drell) would find John D. Drell. -> find author Smith, John will find all the John Smiths including John A. Smith and John X. Smith. VAN DER LANS may be found as: -> FIND author LANS -> find a der lans -> find a van der lans Because of the complexity and variety of names, CHECK RESULTS OF AUTHOR SEARCHES CAREFULLY. If you are uncertain of a spelling, browse: -> bro a dumbrais Beware: When truncating author names, only truncate the surname. Do not truncate first names or initials (which will intefere with the natural truncation and produce unexpected and results). Where two authors share the same surname and initials, you may need to try to eliminate the 'wrong' one by using the 'AND NOT' command. For instance, AND NOT AF something or AND NOT AUTHOR somebody.. Sometimes that's not possible and you'll need to resort to TYPE KEEP and check the papers one by one. ------------------------------------------------------------- AFFILIATION (AF) SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- Affiliation names must be written exactly or truncated. To find exact form, be sure to browse: -> bro af lbl -> bro af caltech To find all papers having authors from a particular institution: -> find af -> find af LBL, Berkeley -> fin af LBL# -> fin af Cal Tech The Ôauthority fileÕ for exact form is a SPIRES file called ÔINSTITUTIONSÕ. You can also find the correct form for affiliation by using the QSPIRES WHEREIS command (for which you donÕt need to interrupt your session). QSPIRES WHEREIS LBL QSPIRES WHEREIS VANCOUVER QSPIRES WHEREIS SSC QSPIRES WHEREIS HAMBURG QSPIRES WHEREIS SERP# ------------------------------------------------------------- DATE (D) QUALIFIER SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- DATE is a Ôqualifier Ô and must be combined with title, author, tp, etc. search. All forms of date are acceptable except European. 16 Jul 1989 7/16/89 7/89 Jul 89 July 16, 1989 NOT 16-7-89 (European style) -> find a Drell and d after 1979 -> find a bjorken & d before 2/81 -> find a richter & d nov 74 NOT -> find d 1982 (illegal search) If a preprint is undated, date search defaults to date received at SLAC. ------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE (T) SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- Common words (the,then, etc.) are ignored in title search. The following example -> find t regge# pole# finds all documents with word stems ÒreggeÓ and ÒpoleÓ anywhere in title in any order. (See TRUNCATION). Reserved characters must be quoted. -> find t Òsu(3)Ó -> find t ÒRHO(1600)Ó ------------------------------------------------------------- TOPIC (TP) SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- Topic searches are often large so prepare by getting extra memory. -> SPIRES space 250p Topic must be stated precisely. BROWSE topic indices or consult printed lists (available from SLAC Library) to find correct terms. IMPORTANT: Remember to combine your topic search with a title search to insure coverage of the most recent preprints. If you are doing a subject search for a review paper or to verify that work has not been done previously, consult a reference librarian. It may be necessary to consult more than one database to get complete coverage of your topic. Call SLAC extension 2411 and ask for ÔReference.Õ -> select hep -> browse tp higgs -> find tp higgs particle# -> and tp experimental result# -> find tp Òrho(765),productionÓ -> find tp rho# production Truncation sign (#) may be used only once, at end or internally. Quotes must be used when parens or other reserved words or symbols appear in topic phrase. Topic search SHOULD ALWAYS BE COMBINED WITH A TITLE SEARCH to include recent items which do not yet have topics assigned. Only 80% of items in HEP have topic words assigned. -> fin tp rho# or ti rho# To see the topics (keywords) assigned to each paper: -> set format allkeys -> typ pau To return to the regular format: -> set for default To use a very brief format: -> set format brief ------------------------------------------------------------- TITLE & TOPIC TERMINOLOGY (how do we show Greek letters, subscripts, etc.) ------------------------------------------------------------- Current character set lacks Greek letters, subscripts, etc. Conventions are: pi- pi+ pi0 anti-k0 rho-prime tau+- Z0 Browse title or topic to verify terms. -> bro t RHO Most superscripts are shown in Fortran notation, i.e. e=mc**2. Subscripts are usually parenthesized or dashed. When in doubt, browse. Most hyphens and are stripped from titles, with a few exceptions like HIGH-ENERGY. To check, browse the title index. If the word doesnÕt appear there with a hyphen, then the hyphen isnÕt used in searching. ------------------------------------------------------------- RESERVED WORDS & CHARACTERS ------------------------------------------------------------- Several words & symbols are reserved for special use in SPIRES. If any occur inside of topic phrases or titles, the whole search phrase must be enclosed in quotes. or and & not ~ >< = () -> find Òtp counters and detectorsÓ -> find tp ÒANTI-P N Ñ> PI+#Ó -> find title ÒSU(1,3)Ó ------------------------------------------------------------- REPORT-NUM (R) SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- Reports and preprints received at SLAC are indexed and shelved by report numbers. -> FIND R SLAC-PUB-5223 -> FIN R SLAC PUB 5227 -> find r SLAC PUB# -> FIND R CERN UA1 TN 90 01 Notice that special characters Ô( /.-Õ may be typed as blanks. SLAC TNÕs, PUBÕS, etc. have leading zeros added to numbers for sorting purposes. Other report numbers are unaltered, although a few are sometimes ÔfixedÕ to be consistent with others in a series. In a few instances such as HEBREW, FREIBURG, EP-CPT, JINR MIT-CTP, LURE, GOTEBORG and SACLAY prefixes are assigned to numbered series which have no prefix of their own. It is very important to browse report numbers to see what form is being used. Another good technique is to first find a group of reports by ÔaffiliationÕ and check the report numbers for form. -> FIND AF UC, Santa Cruz -> FIND R SCIPP# Unnumbered preprints are assigned ÒPRINTÓ numbers for filing purposes. The first unnumbered preprint received at SLAC in 1990 was PRINT-90-0001 (LOUISIANA STATE). The information in parens after the print number shows the source of the preprint and can be ignored in the search. -> find r print-90-0001 All Louisiana State Prints can be searched: -> FIND R PRINT#LOUISIANA STATE Some institutions are woefully inconsistent in their assignment of report numbers, even duplicating numbers. It's really important to browse the report number index and use other methods of searching if you don't find the report number you're looking **for. The SLAC Library reference librarians will be glad to help. Call x2411 and ask fo 'reference'. ------------------------------------------------------------- CITATION (C) SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- Citation search finds most preprints which cited a particular journal article. You must know journal (coden), volume & page. -> find c PHRVA,D4,3388 finds papers which cite the Phys.Rev., Vol. D4, page 3388. PHRVA is the standard five letter coden for Physical Review. Section letters are attached to volume. For example, Phys.Rev.D,vol.1 is written PHRVA,D1. Nuovo Cimento A, vol.66 is written NUCIA,66A. For searching it is not necessary to know whether the letter precedes or follows the volume number. -> FIN C PHRVA,D30,1002 -> FIN C PHRVA,30D,1002 Both the above searches will yield the same result. WARNING: Not all papers indexed in HEP include citations. At present, March 1992, only papers received at the SLAC Library as preprints and announced in Preprints in Particles and Fields have their citation list entered. So the citation search is useful but not definitive and should be used carefully. In 1989, 7469 preprints were included in the set, less than half the almost 17000 items added to HEP in that year. We wish we could do more but our resources are woefully limited. ------------------------------------------------------------- SPICITE (automated citation searching) ------------------------------------------------------------- If you wish to find citing papers for a whole group of papers, for instance, to find who has cited each of your own published papers, you can use the ÔSPICITEÕ exec developed by Dr. K. Aoki at Kyoto University. Just get your result, narrow it down to published papers, and issue the command: ÔSPICITEÕ. (Not available via QSPIRES) ------------------------------------------------------------- COMMON CODEN (browse coden ) ------------------------------------------------------------- J.Math.Phys. JMAPA Int.J.Mod.Phys. IMPAE Mod.Phys.Lett. MPLAE Nucl.Instr.Meth. NUIMA Nucl.Phys. NUPHA Phys.Lett. PHLTA Phys.Rev. PHRVA Phys.Rev.Lett. PRLTA Prog.Theor.Phys PTPKA Rev.Mod.Phys. RMPHA Z. Phys. ZEPYA To find other CODEN: -> BROWSE CODEN -> BRO CODEN ANNALS OF PHYSICS ------------------------------------------------------------- EXPERIMENT NUMBER SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- A new index was created in HEP in response to requests from various users. Currently, March 1992, most papers from SLAC, Fermilab and Cornell experiments are tagged with experiment numbers indexed in the EXP index. SLAC, Fermilab, and Cornell have done the tagging of their own papers. Many papers from CERN and BNL are also tagged. This is an ongoing project and we hope that other labs will join in with experiment coding in the future. At present, this index should be used with caution since it may yield only partial results. -> BROWSE EXP SLAC-SLC -> BROWSE EXP FNAL -> FIN EXP FNAL-E-0741 -> SET FORMAT ALLKEYS -> TYPE Setting the format ÔallkeysÕ lets you see the experiment numbers assigned to papers in the result and all the topic phrases. For a briefer format which also shows experiment number: -> SET FORMAT BRIEFX ------------------------------------------------------------- PPF SUBJECT (PS) QUALIFIER SEARCH ------------------------------------------------------------- All preprints announced on PPF are given one or more of the following codes: I,C,E,T,R. C Computer hardware or software for experiment or data analysis ET Theory with discussion of data E New experimental data T Pure theory ER Experimental review TR Theory review ETR Experimental & Theory review IE Experimental data & detailed discussion of instrumentation I Instrumentation for experiments (not accelerator technology) Searches using the PS qualifier must be appended to a simple index search. -> find t TAU# and PS e ------------------------------------------------------------- SEQUENCE (seq) find t Z0# -> seq A T Result will be sequenced by first author and sub-sequenced by title. (Name of the element used to SEQ is not always same mnemonic as search term.) SHO ELEMENTS to see element names. -> SHO ELEM To obtain a true reverse chronological order: -> seq ds (d) This sorts records in descending order by a special composite ÔvirtualÕ field called Ôdate-sortÕ or DS. It contains document date, if available, or Ôdate-receivedÕ. ------------------------------------------------------------- SET FORMAT xxxx (write out your result in TeX source ------------------------------------------------------------- Some SPIRES subfiles have more than one output format (or view) available. For instance: -> SEL HEP -> SHO FORMATS KEYS CARDS DEFAULT (set) **... The format currently selected is marked. To see a complete ÔunformattedÕ record, get a result: -> CLEAR FORMAT -> TYPE To set other formats: -> SET FOR(MAT) -> SET FOR BRIEF -> SET FOR ALLKEYS -> SET FOR DEFAULT.ALLAUTH -> SET FOR TEX In the HEP subfile, the format named DEFAULT is the standard bibliographic format. ALLKEYS shows all TOPICS and experiment numbers assigned to each document.. DEFAULT.ALLAUTH shows all authors no matter how many hundreds. TEX produces a TeXable file for a bibliography. ------------------------------------------------------------- FOR MORE INFORMATION about SPIRES ------------------------------------------------------------- SPIRES (Stanford Public Information REtrieval System) is a very powerful, 4th generation database management system which has hundreds of features of which the average user is usually quite unaware. To find out more about SPIRES on-line, use the EXPLAIN and the SHOW EXAMPLE commands. -> explain explain command -> explain show example -> show example find -> exp filters -> exp store result -> exp store stack -> exp sequence To find out about a particular database (called a subfile): -> EXPLAIN For more detailed printed information about features of the SPIRES search, consult: SPIRES SEARCHING AND UPDATING MANUAL To obtain this and other SPIRES searching, reporting and database design and management technical documents: SPIRES -> perform publish and select the documents you want to print. (If you're not at SLAC, you can obtain SPIRES documentation thru the SPIRES Consortium at Stanford University, E-mail to GA.RLL@STANFORD.BITNET). Remember, however, that these documents do not specifically explain the library databases. You'll still need the specialized information in the brochures and on-line documentation available from the SLAC Library. QSPIRES users and many regular SPIRES HEP users may want to send for the recently completed and very comprehensive GUIDE TO QSPIRES by H. Galic. Request it by Email from QSPI@SLACVM. For help in searching one of the library files, ask a reference librarian at the SLAC Library, x2411 or send E-mail to ADDIS@SLACVM (Louise Addis) or LIRYG@SLACVM (Bob Gex) . For help with QSPIRES, send E-mail to QSPI@SLACVM (Harv Galic). ------------------------------------------------------------- OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION, i.e. INSPEC ------------------------------------------------------------- Remember that not all subjects are covered in the HEP database and a reference librarian can help you find other databases which may help you solve a specific problem. For example, Physics Abstracts, Electrical and Electronic Engineering Abstracts, and Computer and Control Abstracts are all available as 'INSPEC' thru a commercial database service.