• A search query consists of one or more search terms, along with zero or more parameters, such as Boolean operators, and wildcards.

• An automatic AND is assumed between words entered next to each other in a search query. For example, a search for bird cat dog returns the same search results as bird AND cat AND dog.

• Query terms are not case sensitive, and punctuation marks, such as hyphens, commas, and semicolons, are ignored.

• Query length of up to 64,000 characters can be accommodated in both Advanced Search and the main keyword search.

• The search results query text rendered immediately above Search Results shows you how searches have been parsed.

Welcome to Search Help for the CABI Digital Library (CDL).

In this help file you can find a detailed description on how to search CABI Digital Library, in particular for our main databases CAB Abstracts and Global Health.

This guide describes end-user searches, search queries, parameters, Boolean operators and wildcards to support more advanced searching.

CABI Digital Library uses the Literatum search engine from Atypon with some adaptations for CABI’s database and full text content profile.

To export this help file as a PDF, click the menu next to any page title. From here you can export a specific page or all help information in one go.

In the Recent Searches you can see the latest 100 searches from the current session. New searches will overwrite the oldest existing search. A session expires automatically after 30 minutes of inactivity (with a maximum session duration of 12 hours).

There are 2 ways to get to your Recent Searches:

• Via the Advanced Search

• Via ‘My Searches’ on the search results page

From there, you can go to ‘Recent searches’ (or Saved Searches). Here the latest 100 searches from your search session are remembered and you can combine your searches with the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT. When combining searches the first search query you select will be placed before the operator, the second query will go after the operator.

Searches performed from the homepage of the CABI Digital Library retrieve results across all CABI content hosted on the site, including both database abstracts as well as full text information.

Results are grouped for display according to content type:

• “Abstract records” includes results for CABI’s database products

• “Articles/Chapters” displays results for full text content published by CABI, including book chapters, journal articles (like CABI Reviews), CABI Compendium Datasheets, and Cases

• “Publications” displays results from whole book titles and whole CABI journals

• "News/Blogs/Events" displays the latest news, informative blog and an overview of relevant events

CABI Digital Library enables you to export up to 100,000 search results as a single operation in a variety of formats, including .ris, .csv, Text, bibText, and EndNote. You can also export only selected records at a time.

To export database records which appear under the 'Abstract records' tab in bulk you must be a registered user on the platform, logged in, and have a license to access the records.

If you're not logged in, you will be prompted to Login/Register in the course of the export process.

To activate the ‘Export Citations’ feature, you need to click on desired record(s) in the search result page. It is possible to export just ‘Selected’ results from the current Search Results page you are on or alternatively ‘All results’ for your search (i.e., up to 100,000 records) as a single export operation. Select the export output format from the drop down along with the citation format option.

The Export Citation box provides a preview of the data format and fields which will be exported for each output option for the records you have selected to export.

When you are happy with your export settings, simply click the 'Download citation' arrow in the bottom right corner to export your results.

Once you have clicked the export arrow, you must keep the current browser tab open until your export completes. A notification about this will then appear in the Export Citation dialog box: “Your export is currently added to the export queue. Depending on the size of the queue this might take up to 2 hours. Please leave this page/tab open until the downloading process is complete. Do not refresh or navigate away from this page.” As indicated, it may take a while for the export to complete based on the size of your individual export as well as other simultaneous export queue activity on the platform.

Depending on how your browser is set up, you may see a ‘Downloads’ notification appear as soon as your export completes.

• Via the product landing page (through the 'Browse products' menu)

• Using the 'Product' filter on the left-hand side in search results

• Using the 'CABI Product' field in Advanced Search

• Using the sc codes in Basic Search

Via the product landing page / 'Browse products' menu

It is possible to search only within a specified product by selecting the product from the top Browse Products navigation bar.

If you start your search from the search bar on the product homepage, you will only search within that product. The product that you have searched within will be indicated in the 'Applied Filters' section on the left.

Using the 'Product' filter on the left hand side in search results

It is also possible to limit search results and subsequent searches to a specific CABI database by using the left hand 'CABI Product' refine facet. When you select the desired product, the database filter then remains set for your next search, when using the search box immediately above search results to perform another search.

Using the 'CABI Product' field in Advanced Search

The 'CABI Product' field in Advanced Search can be used to build searches which work in one or across multiple CABI products simultaneously, whether these are databases or primary publications. The desired products need to be specified using the two-letter codes indicated in these tables and selecting CABI Product (sc code) from the dropdown menu. You may specify as many products as you wish by combining them with the Boolean operator OR.

As an example, to search simultaneously the term ‘rabies’ occurring in either CAB Abstracts (a database) or in Global Health (another database) you would enter the two product codes combined with the OR operator – <ca OR he> – selecting 'CABI Product (sc code)' from the dropdown menu, AND you would enter the term <rabies> in the subsequent box keeping 'All fields' in the dropdown menu on the right.

Alternatively, it is also possible to specify the product in the search box by entering the sequence code (sc) followed by a colon in front of the two-letter product code (full list retrievable in these tables). In this case, since the product is already specified in the search box, 'All fields' should be kept in the drop-down menu. For example, the above search is also reproducible this way in Advanced Search: enter the two product codes combined with the OR operator, each preceded by sc:, and put them within round brackets, keeping 'All fields' in the dropdown menu on the right. AND enter the term <rabies> in the subsequent box keeping 'All fields' in the dropdown menu on the right.

Using the sc codes in Basic Search

You can perform the same search reported above in the Basic Search. To do so, you need to go to CABI Digital Library homepage and enter (sc:ca OR sc:he) AND rabies

Creating saved searches and search alerts

The "Save Search" feature enables you to save searches and create alerts for your searches. You must be logged in with a CABI Digital Library user account in order to save searches and create alerts.

You will see the Save Search icon both on Search Results screen and on the Recent Searches screen

Click on the icon and you will be presented with a pop-up box:

Here you can give your search a name and select the frequency of alerts for that specific search. Now click ‘Save Search’.

Your search has now been saved and an alert created, based on the frequency selected. Select "Never" if you simply wish to save your search without creating an automatic alert.

If you have created a search alert you will receive notifications via email alerting you to the addition of new records matching your search criteria, according to the frequency you have selected.

Viewing saved searches

In the Saved Searches you can save up to 100 searches and also combine your saved searches using the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT.

New searches that you save after the 100 search limit will overwrite the oldest existing saved search. You can remove saved searches to free up space for new saved searches by clicking the bin icon.

There are 3 ways to see your Saved Searches:

• Via the Advanced Search

• Via Saved Searches in your Account

• Via ‘My Searches’ on the search results page

Here you can find your saved searches.

Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT can be applied to searches. Boolean operators must be capitalised, otherwise they are parsed as search terms not as Boolean operators. The symbols &&, ||, !! can also be used instead of the words AND, OR, NOT (please note the symbols must be preceded and followed by a space)

Wildcards can be used to construct queries with partial search terms.

Use an asterisk * to match any number of characters.

For example:

duoden*

matches duodenal, duodenectomy, and so on.

p*diatric

·matches pediatric, paediatric, and so on.

A question mark ? can be used to match 0 or any single character

For example:

l?st

matches last, lest, list, and so on.

200?

matches any years between 2000 and 2009

Important caveats to be aware of when using truncation

Wildcards cannot be added to the beginning of search terms, this generates an error.

Wildcards cannot be used in an expression enclosed with double quotes, our search engine ignores wildcards when quotes are used, and may give incorrect results.

For example, searching for

“p*diatric”

is equivalent to searching for

p diatric

Avoid excessive use of wildcards, as in some cases, using wildcards could affect performance of the platform.

For example, searching for

comp*

is more resource intensive than

comput*

because in the former there are more consecutive character variations to process.

Parentheses or Curved Brackets should be used to group search terms when combining three or more terms with different Boolean operators, to indicate the order of search. Terms enclosed within parentheses/brackets are processed together first by the search engine.

For example, the following query searches for documents containing care and also containing either cat or dog:

care AND (cat OR dog)

Without parentheses/brackets, the query <care AND cat OR dog> searches for documents containing care and cat, or containing dog, so would bring back many results about dogs unrelated to care.

Multiple sets of parentheses/brackets should be used in longer searches that combine multiple phrases together with Boolean operators, to designate clearly to the search engine how the search should be processed.

Searches within parentheses/brackets are performed first and parsing proceeds from left to right. Parentheses/brackets must be “balanced” around phrases so that both longer compound phrases and their shorter sub-components within are correctly enclosed in parentheses/brackets on either side.

In the search example below both variants give correct results because the phrase on the left contains balanced parentheses/brackets.

((pet OR animal) AND (interaction)) AND ((blood pressure) OR (cortisol reduction))

gives 2287 results

((pet OR animal) AND interaction) AND ((Blood pressure) OR (Cortisol reduction))

also gives 2287 results

By comparison this third variant contains unbalanced parentheses/brackets on the left (a second extra right parenthesis/bracket) and gives 0 results:

((pet OR animal) AND interaction)) AND ((Blood pressure) OR (Cortisol reduction))

The search results query text rendered immediately above Search Results shows you how the search has been parsed.

Stemming involves reducing query terms to their most basic form, or stem, and using this to identify all the derivatives of that word such a plurals which should be considered a match.

For example, searching for

initialization

will also return results for initialize, initials, etc. Results matching the exact query term searched initialization will rank higher than its derivatives in the search results list.

Stemming can be disabled by using double quotes around words or phrases. Thus it is possible to search for a precise variant of a word including plurals or singular variants of words, for example

“dog” NOT dogs.

Word Stemming is enabled by default for all publication text fields, such as full-text and abstract.

Closed-class words, such as articles, pronouns, and conjunctions. In English, words such as a, is, she, the, that, and will are filtered out of a search query. For example, in the query the red house, the search discards the and searches for the terms red,house.

But this feature is disabled if stop words are part of a phrase surrounded by quotes, then stop words are not discounted “the red house” searches for all 3 words in that exact order.

Enables searching for two or more terms that appear within a specified distance of one another.

Procedure: Place quotation marks around the terms you want to search for, followed by a tilde ~ and a number indicating the maximum number of words separating the terms.

For example:

“metabolic mechanism”~3

searches for the words metabolic and mechanism within 3 words of each other.

Accented characters, Subscripts and superscripts and Unicode characters are all accepted when searching.

Similarly ISBNs and ISSNs can be searched both with and without hyphens.

The CABI Digital Library search functionality automatically finds British/American spelling variants across all content fields and full text, with the exception of the Keyword/Index fields where it looks for precise matches of spelling.

A dedicated English dictionary is used to tackle the variations on word spelling caused by differences found among English speaking countries, and by alternative spellings within the same country. The varcon (Variant Conversion Info) lexicon is used to enhance English handling and it includes spellings in American, British, Canadian, and Australian and also variant spellings within these languages. British – US synonyms cannot be deactivated with double quotes.

Example: if you search for

aa:chile

(aa = author affiliation)

The results will also give items with 'chili' in the author affiliation field, because this is considered a synonym of 'chile'.

For indexing terms, truncation may also be used when searching to ensure that spelling variants are retrieved.

For example search for

colo?r

rather than

color

to ensure retrieval of any records where the word ‘colour” occurs as part of the index terms, for instance “colour patterns” in the descriptor field.

Using double quotes “” will find an exact word or phrase and disables stemming.

• Wildcards – both * and ? are ignored when using quotes

• Within phrases in quotes AND, OR, NOT are treated as words which are part of the search expression, not Boolean operators.

• Proximity Operators are ignored within quotes

The Advanced search page enables the building of complex search queries across specific fields using multiple search boxes which can be linked together with Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT).

• It is possible to add as many additional search rows as needed to the entry form.

• Searching on ‘All fields’ searches across all database fields.

• There are three Compound fields which enable searching across selected multiple fields at the same time:

  • Authors/Contributors – searches across authors, editors as well as corporate author

  • Title – searches across article title fields (both original language as well as translated English title)

  • Indexing Term – searches across all indexing fields in one go – Descriptors, Identifiers, Organism Descriptors, Geographic Location and Broad Term

• To search by language please use the two digit ISO 639-1 codes which may be found here:

It is also possible to specify search limits using a variety of filters:

• Creation Date – the date when the content was uploaded to CABI’s platform. For databases this is the date when the abstract was uploaded by CABI. In contrast the “Year” field in the Advanced Search field drop down can be used to search the year of publication of the original article or full text, rather than that of its corresponding abstract.

• Publication type of Abstract Record – limits results to specific types of content such as journal articles or conference proceedings

• Open access content or subscribed only content (Note that this refers to the access status of the item hosted in CABI Digital Library and not to the source content in case of our abstract records. To filter on Open Access source content, you can use the ' filter on the search results page).

CABI’s controlled vocabulary covers pure and applied life sciences, technology and social sciences. The CABI Thesaurus enables term look up and browsing of CABI's controlled vocabulary.

When you search using CABI’s index terms you are focusing the search to the most relevant papers related to your topic specifically indexed with that term by CABI’s subject experts, not simply papers that happen to mention words in the abstract or title.

Descriptor – topic based terms, used to describe what an article or publication is about, e.g. disease prevention, epidemiology. These terms form part of CABI’s controlled vocabulary.

Organism Descriptor - plant and animal names and scientific names part of the organism's taxonomy.

Identifier – new concepts or organisms that are not already in CABI’s controlled vocabulary, terminology that is still developing. Alternatively, identifiers can also include older terms or concepts which may have dropped out of current use and been replaced by more up to date descriptors.

Geographic location - Location where the research took place, not necessarily where it is published.

Broad term - Terms which exist above a search term in the taxonomic or geographic hierarchy in the CAB Thesaurus, e.g. primates, viruses, Southern Europe. Searching with Broader Terms will automatically find all relevant narrower terms immediately below that term. This can be especially useful when searching for information across geographic locations. For example if you search for a region such as Southern Europe as the broad term this finds records with geographic locations of all of the individual countries located in this region.

Using our controlled vocabulary when searching: All controlled vocabulary information applied to database records is automatically included in free text searching available from the Home page, or the Advanced Search “All fields” search, to ensure maximum retrievability of appropriate results.

To search only across controlled vocabulary terms use the Advanced Search “Indexing Term” field option, or from the general Home page search using the field designator ‘indexingterm’ followed by a colon, e.g.

indexingterm: helminths

When searching for index terms which consist of phrases enclose the phrase in quotation marks to ensure that the entire term is parsed correctly, otherwise the search looks for indexingterm: disease and the term prevention separately and may give incorrect information.

indexingterm: “disease prevention”

CABI is working on a new Thesaurus Tool which will be integrated with the CABI Digital Library which will enable term look up and addition of terms to search, anticipated for mid-2024.

The codes below can be used to create a search query to search within one or more products. In a normal search the field designator SC must be indicated, followed by a colon and the two digit product sc:CA code or in a search <sc:CA AND beekeeping>.

To search across one or more products use the Boolean operator OR to specify the products

<(sc:CA OR sc:X0) AND beekeeping>

However, if you are using the codes the in the Advanced Search CABI Product field, it is not necessary to specify the field abbreviation SC, you can use just the product code.

Sometimes it can be useful to build a search query for CABI's primary publications. Below is a list of Sequence Codes you could use.

In addition to using Advanced Search it is also possible to use field tags (or codes) to search specific database index fields. For example to search for a title in the publication source field search:

do:"animal feed science and technology"

Or to search for an indexing term from :

indexingterm:"holiday"

It is recommended that phrases are placed in quotes for exact matching when searching using field tags.

List of all index field names and field tags

The list shows all index field names, their tag codes and the corresponding field to use in Advanced Search.

Compound fields

Regular fields

The CABI Digital Library uses different filters to enable users to quickly limit their database search results to specific types of content. In this section we explain how these filters work.

• CABI-curated search filters

  • Grey Literature

  • Evidence Based Research

• Full Text filters

  • Open Access Full Text available

  • CABI-Hosted Full Text available

The filter has been constructed by CABI’s editorial content team with advice from librarians and information professionals; it is kept under review and updated periodically.

Grey Literature

The “Grey Literature” filter consists of a pre-made search strategy identifying certain categories of content originating outside of traditional publishing. The content is sourced and selected for inclusion in our databases by CABI’s editorial content team based on CABI’s scoping criteria, and indexed with specific database item types (IT).

The search strategy used for this filter makes use of the Item Type field:

it:("annual report" OR bulletin OR "bulletin article" OR miscellaneous OR patent OR standard OR thesis) OR it:("conference proceedings" NOT "journal issue") OR it:("conference paper" NOT "journal article")

Evidence Based Research

The “Evidence Based Research” filter consists of a pre-made search strategy specifically designed to identify various types of literature which presents evidence synthesis, such as systematic reviews, meta analyses and scoping reviews, that is included in our databases.

As of November 2023 this is the strategy used for the Evidence Based Research filter:

"literature review" OR "literature reviews" OR "evidence based veterinary" OR "jbi evidence synthesis" OR "overview of reviews" OR "systematic review" OR "systematic reviews" OR "evidence synthesis" OR "evidence syntheses" OR "meta analysis" OR "meta analyses" OR "systematised review" OR "systematized review" OR "systematised reviews" OR "systematized reviews" OR "rapid review" OR "rapid reviews" OR "scoping review" OR "scoping reviews" OR "integrative review" OR "systematic map" OR "systematic mapping" OR "critically appraised topic" OR "critically appraised topics" OR "veterinary evidence" OR "knowledge summary" OR "knowledge summaries" OR "Cochrane register" OR "Cochrane review" OR "Cochrane Library" OR "evidence based practice" OR "evidence map" OR "evidence mapping" OR "mapping evidence review" OR "mapping review" OR "meta narrative review" OR "meta review" OR "mixed methods review" OR "mixed methods synthesis" OR "mixed papers review" OR "overview of reviews" OR "rapid evidence assessment" OR "rapid evidence review" OR "rapid evidence summary" OR "rapid evidence summaries" OR " rapid realist synthesis" OR "rapid living review" OR "rapid review" OR "realist review" OR "evidence gap map" OR "gap map" OR "umbrella review" OR "scoping review" OR "scoping content review" OR "scoping literature review" OR "scoping meta review" OR "scoping report" OR "Campbell Collaboration" OR "Collaboration for Environmental Evidence" OR "narrative review" OR "narrative reviews" OR "evidence review" OR "evidence based review" OR "evidence report" OR "metaanalysis" OR "metaanalyses" OR "systematic overview" OR "structured literature review" OR "mixed research synthesis" OR "mixed studies review" OR "mixed treatment comparison" OR "multiple treatment comparison" OR "realist synthesis" OR "review of reviews" OR "reviews of reviews" OR "systematic literature review" OR "systemic review" OR "narrative synthesis"

Open Access Full Text

The “Open Access Full Text available” filter offers a quick way of zeroing in on literature that is distributed online and identified as “Open Access” free of access charges, and which has been sourced and selected for inclusion in our databases based on CABI’s subject scoping criteria.

CABI-Hosted Full Text

The “CABI-Hosted Full Text available” filter provides access to literature specifically gathered and included in CABI’s Full Text repository of over 790,000 items and growing, made possible by agreement with third party contributors, and which has been specially digitised and indexed by CABI. Nearly 70% of the content is not reliably available anywhere else. This category of content enables researchers to access hard to find material published from across agriculture, health and the life sciences ensuring that they have access to all relevant literature, not just that which is readily available.

In addition to adding index terms to a record, broad concepts or subjects are also “indexed” with a classification system known as CABICODES used to code for subjects that would be difficult to describe with keywords alone. CABICODES divide the subject coverage of the CAB ABSTRACTS database into 25 major sections or subjects. Each subject then includes a series of codes that divides that subject into more specific areas.

Search for content tagged with the relevant codes by entering the six digit code into the CABICODE field in Advanced search. Alternatively search in the main search box using the CC field tag, for example, cc: EE110 to retrieve all records tagged with the Agricultural Economics, EE110 CABICODE.

AA000 Agriculture (General)

AA500 Research

BB500 History and Biography

BB700 Palaeontology and Archaeology

CC000 Education, Extension, Information and Training (General)

CC100 Education and Training

CC200 Extension and Advisory Work

CC300 Information and Documentation

CC400 Collections

CC700 Professions: Practice and Service

DD100 Agencies and Organizations

DD500 Laws and Regulations

EE000 Economics (General)

EE110 Agricultural Economics

EE111 Horticultural Economics (NEW March 2000)

EE112 Forestry Economics (NEW March 2000)

EE113 Aquacultural and Fisheries Economics (NEW March 2000)

EE115 Natural Resource Economics (NEW March 2000)

EE116 Food Economics (NEW March 2000)

EE117 Veterinary Economics (NEW March 2000)

EE118 Health Economics (NEW March 2000)

EE119 Leisure, Recreation and Tourism Economics (NEW March 2000)

EE120 Policy and Planning

EE125 Aid (NEW March 2000)

EE130 Supply, Demand and Prices

EE140 Input Supply Industries (Macroeconomics)

EE145 Input Utilization (Microeconomics)

EE165 Structure, Ownership and Tenure

EE350 Rural Industry and Enterprises

EE600 International Trade

EE700 Marketing and Distribution

EE720 Consumer Economics

EE800 Investment, Finance and Credit

EE900 Labour and Employment

EE950 Income and Poverty

FF000 Plant Science (General)

FF003 Horticultural Crops (NEW March 2000)

FF005 Field Crops (NEW March 2000)

FF007 Forage and Fodder Crops (NEW March 2000)

FF020 Plant Breeding and Genetics

FF030 Plant Morphology and Structure

FF040 Plant Composition

FF060 Plant Physiology and Biochemistry

FF061 Plant Nutrition

FF062 Plant-Water Relations

FF100 Plant Production

FF150 Plant Cropping Systems

FF160 Plant Propagation

FF170 in vitro Culture of Plant Material

FF500 Weeds and Noxious Plants

FF610 Viral, Bacterial and Fungal Diseases of Plants (NEW March 2000)

FF620 Plant Pests (NEW March 2000)

FF700 Plant Disorders and Injuries (Not caused directly by Organisms)

FF800 Plant Toxicology

FF900 Environmental Tolerance of Plants

HH000 Pathogen, Pest and Parasite and Weed Management (General)

HH100 Biological Control

HH200 Environmental Pest Management

HH300 Integrated Pest Management

HH400 Pesticides and Drugs (General)

HH405 Pesticides and Drugs: Control (NEW March 2000)

HH410 Pesticide and Drug Resistance

HH420 Pesticides and Drugs: Chemistry and Formulation (NEW March 2000)

HH430 Pesticide and Drug Residues and Ecotoxicology (NEW March 2000)

HH500 Repellents and Attractants

HH600 Host Resistance and Immunity

HH700 Other Control Measures

JJ000 Soil Science (General)

JJ100 Soil Biology

JJ200 Soil Chemistry and Mineralogy

JJ300 Soil Physics

JJ400 Soil Morphology, Formation and Classification

JJ500 Soil Surveys and Land Evaluation

JJ600 Soil Fertility

JJ700 Fertilizers and other Amendments

JJ800 Soil Water Management (Irrigation and Drainage)

JJ900 Soil Management

KK000 Forestry, Forest Products and Agroforestry (General)

KK100 Forests and Forest Trees (Biology and Ecology)

KK110 Silviculture and Forest Management

KK130 Forest Fires

KK160 Ornamental and Amenity Trees

KK500 Forest Products and Industries (General)

KK510 Wood Properties, Damage and Preservation

KK515 Logging and Wood Processing

KK520 Wood Utilization and Engineered Wood Products

KK530 Chemical and Biological Processing of Wood

KK540 Non-wood Forest Products

KK600 Agroforestry and Multipurpose Trees; Community, Farm and Social Forestry

LL000 Animal Science (General)

LL010 Apiculture

LL020 Sericulture

LL030 Other Invertebrate Culture (Not Aquaculture)

LL040 Laboratory Animal Science

LL050 Game Animals

LL060 Working Animals (revised September 2022, was Draught Animals)

LL070 Pets and Companion Animals

LL075 Sport Animals (NEW March 2000)

LL080 Zoo Animals

LL110 Dairy Animals

LL120 Meat-producing Animals

LL130 Egg-producing Animals

LL145 Wool-producing Animals (NEW March 2000)

LL148 Fur-bearing Animals (NEW March 2000)

LL180 Animal Husbandry and Production (NEW March 2000)

LL190 Animal Slaughter

LL240 Animal Genetics and Breeding (NEW March 2000)

LL250 Animal Reproduction and Embryology (NEW March 2000)

LL300 Animal Behaviour

LL400 Animal Anatomy and Morphology (NEW March 2000)

LL500 Animal Nutrition (General)

LL510 Animal Nutrition (Physiology)

LL520 Animal Nutrition (Production Responses)

LL600 Animal Physiology and Biochemistry (Excluding Nutrition)

LL650 Animal Immunology (NEW March 2000)

LL700 Animal Tissue and Cell Culture

LL800 Animal Health and Hygiene (General)

LL810 Animal Welfare

LL821 Prion, Viral, Bacterial and Fungal Pathogens of Animals (NEW March 2000)

LL822 Protozoan, Helminth, Mollusc and Arthropod Parasites of Animals (NEW March 2000)

LL823 Veterinary Pests, Vectors and Intermediate Hosts (NEW March 2000)

LL860 Non-communicable Diseases and Injuries of Animals

LL882 Veterinary Pharmacology and Anaesthesiology (NEW March 2000)

LL884 Animal Surgery and Non-drug Therapy (NEW March 2000)

LL886 Diagnosis of Animal Diseases (NEW March 2000)

LL950 Toxicology and Poisoning of Animals (NEW March 2000)

MM000 Aquatic Sciences (General)

MM110 Fisheries

MM120 Aquaculture (Animals)

MM130 Aquaculture (Plants)

MM300 Aquatic Biology and Ecology

NN000 Engineering and Equipment (General)

NN050 Automation and Control

NN300 Farm and Horticultural Structures

NN400 Agricultural and Forestry Equipment (General)

NN460 Cleaning, Grading, Handling, Storage and Transport Equipment

NN600 Processing Equipment and Technology

PP000 Natural Resources (General)

PP100 Energy

PP200 Water Resources

PP300 Land Resources

PP320 Wetlands

PP350 Grasslands and Rangelands

PP400 Erosion; Soil and Water Conservation

PP500 Meteorology and Climate

PP550 Climate change (NEW September 2022)

PP600 Pollution and Degradation

PP700 Biological Resources (General)

PP710 Biological Resources (Animal)

PP720 Biological Resources (Plant)

PP730 Invasive species (NEW September 2022)

PP800 Natural Disasters

QQ000 Food Science and Food Products (Human)

QQ010 Milk and Dairy Produce

QQ020 Sugar and Sugar Products

QQ030 Meat Produce

QQ040 Eggs and Egg Products

QQ050 Crop Produce

QQ060 Aquatic Produce

QQ070 Other Produce

QQ100 Food Processing (General)

QQ110 Food Storage and Preservation

QQ111 Storage Problems and Pests of Food

QQ120 Microbial Technology in Food Processing

QQ130 Food Additives

QQ200 Food Contamination, Residues and Toxicology

QQ500 Food Composition and Quality

QQ600 Food Chemistry (NEW 2002)

QQ700 Food Service (NEW 2002)

RR000 Forage and Feed Products (Non-human)

RR100 Forage and Feed Processing

RR130 Feed Additives

RR200 Feed Contamination, Residues and Toxicology

RR300 Feed Composition and Quality

SS000 Non-food/Non-feed Agricultural Products (General)

SS100 Non-food/Non-feed Animal Products

SS200 Non-food/Non-feed Plant Products

SS210 Storage Problems and Pests of Non-food/Non-feed Plant Products

SS230 Composition and Quality of Non-food/Non-feed Plant Products

SS300 Biodeterioration

UU000 Social Sciences (General)

UU100 Housing and Settlement

UU200 Demography

UU300 Public Services and Infrastructure

UU350 Health Services

UU360 Communication and Mass Media

UU450 Community Participation and Development (NEW March 2000)

UU485 Social Psychology and Social Anthropology (NEW March 2000)

UU495 Conflict (NEW March 2000)

UU500 Gender relations (revised September 2022, was Women)

UU600 Leisure

UU610 Recreational Facilities and Management (NEW March 2000)

UU625 Sport and Recreational Activities (NEW March 2000)

UU630 Arts, Entertainment and Cultural Heritage

UU700 Tourism and Travel

UU800 Rural Sociology (NEW March 2000)

UU850 Rural Development (NEW March 2000)

VV000 Human Health and Biology (General)

VV050 Human Physiology and Biochemistry

VV055 Immunology and Allergology (NEW March 2000)

VV060 Human Reproduction and Development

VV065 Human Sexual and Reproductive Health (NEW March 2000)

VV080 Human Genetics and Molecular Medicine (NEW 2002)

VV100 Human Nutrition (General)

VV110 Diet Studies

VV120 Physiology of Human Nutrition

VV130 Nutrition-related Disorders and Therapeutic Nutrition

VV140 Animal Models of Human Nutrition

VV210 Prion, Viral, Bacterial and Fungal Pathogens of Humans (NEW March 2000)

VV220 Protozoan, Helminth and Arthropod Parasites of Humans (NEW March 2000)

VV230 Public Health Pests, Vectors and Intermediate Hosts (NEW March 2000)

VV400 Animal Models of Human Diseases (NEW March 2000)

VV450 Animal and in vitro Models for Pharmaceuticals (NEW March 2000)

VV500 Human Health and the Environment

VV550 Rural Health (NEW March 2000)

VV600 Non–communicable Human Diseases and Injuries

VV710 Non-drug Therapy and Prophylaxis of Humans (NEW March 2000)

VV720 Diagnosis of Human Disease (NEW March 2000)

VV730 Pharmacology (NEW March 2000)

VV810 Human Toxicology and Poisoning (NEW March 2000)

VV820 Toxinology (NEW March 2000)

VV900 Occupational Health and Safety

WW000 Biotechnology [General]

WW100 Genetic Engineering, Gene Transfer and Transgenics (NEW 2002)

WW300 Cell, Tissue and Embryo Manipulation (NEW 2002)

WW500 Fermentation Technology and Industrial Microbiology (NEW 2002)

WW700 Diagnostic, Therapeutic and Pharmacological Biotechnology (NEW 2002)

WW900 Biosensors and Biological Nanotechnology (NEW 2002)

XX000 Wastes (General)

XX100 Animal Wastes

XX200 Plant Wastes

XX300 Human Wastes and Refuse

XX400 Industrial Wastes and Effluents

XX700 Biodegradation

YY000 Zoology - Wild Animals (Vertebrates and Invertebrates) (General) (NEW March 2000)

YY100 Anatomy and Morphology (Wild Animals) (NEW March 2000)

YY200 Reproduction, Development and Life Cycle (Wild Animals) (NEW March 2000)

YY300 Genetics and Molecular Genetics (Wild Animals) (NEW March 2000)

YY400 Physiology and Biochemistry (Wild Animals) (NEW March 2000)

YY500 Behaviour (Wild Animals) (NEW March 2000)

YY700 Pathogens, Parasites and Infectious Diseases (Wild Animals) (NEW March 2000)

YY800 Other Wildlife Diseases (NEW March 2000)

YY900 Toxicology and Poisoning (Wild Animals) (NEW March 2000)

ZZ000 Other Sciences

ZZ100 Mathematics and Statistics

ZZ200 Materials Science

ZZ300 Life Sciences (General)

ZZ330 Ecology (General)

ZZ331 Plant Ecology

ZZ332 Animal Ecology

ZZ333 Microbial Ecology (NEW March 2000)

ZZ360 Molecular Biology and Molecular Genetics

ZZ380 Taxonomy and Evolution

ZZ390 Microbiology (General)

ZZ392 Morphology of Microorganisms (NEW March 2000)

ZZ394 Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms (NEW March 2000)

ZZ395 Genetics and Molecular Genetics of Microorganisms (NEW March 2000)

ZZ396 Microbial Life Cycles (NEW March 2000)

ZZ500 Physical Sciences (General)

ZZ650 One Health (NEW September 2022)

ZZ700 Forensic Science

ZZ800 Geology and Geomorphology (General)

ZZ900 Techniques and Methodology

Users can easily narrow down their searches of abstract records by specific year ranges by selecting dedicated buttons in the left pane of the search result page.

• 'This year' filter returns all abstract records of items published within the current year (i.e., from 1/1/2024 to date).

• 'Last year' filter returns all abstract records of items published last year (i.e., from 1/1/2023 to 31/12/2023).

• 'Last 5 years' filter returns all abstract records of items published within the last 5 years (i.e., from 1/1/2019 to to 31/12/2023).

Note that, in comparison the 'creation date' is the date when the abstract was added to the database, whereas the publication date is the date of the original publication.

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To do so, please follow instructions at this link

IMPORTANT: EZproxy stand-alone users, please add the CookieLaw stanza to resolve the Cookie Banner pop-up issue. You can find further details here,

If you need any support or guidance our team is here to help. You can contact us at

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Tips for converting MyCABI searches to the search syntax of the CABI Digital Library

The CABI Digital Library uses a different set of technologies from CAB Direct and CABI’s older websites, so there are some important differences in how the search syntax works which you need to be aware of if you wish to re-use any searches previously saved in MyCABI.

We provide a short summary of the search features of the CABI Digital Library, a more detailed description is available from our Help file available here:

Boolean operators MUST be capitalised, so use AND, OR, NOT; search will not work correctly with lower case Boolean operators.

Word stemming is automatically applied to all publication text fields, including author names, to help the user automatically find all the most relevant results possible.

• It is not necessary to use wildcards to pick up plurals or other derivatives, the word stemming feature will pick these up automatically. So for example, searching for initialization will also return results for initialize, initials, etc.

• Please refrain from overuse of wildcards as this can affect search performance.

• You can use double quotes to completely switch word stemming off, including switching plurals off. So searching for “cat and dog” will only find records matching this exact phase with the singular words, but not the plural version <cats and dogs>

• Use quotation marks when searching author names if you wish to find only exact matches and avoid stemming.

• UK/US spelling variants are applied in all full text and database text fields.

Special rules for index fields: Word stemming is not applied to database index fields, the search looks for precise matching of terms and spelling.

• Use the CABI Thesaurus to look up the exact spelling variant of index terms to apply to your search.

• Note that CABI uses British spelling variants.

• Use truncation if you are unsure of spelling when searching in the index fields, for example, de:colo?r brings back the same results as de:colour , whereas de:color (the American spelling variant) finds 0 results.

• Alternatively, if you don’t know which index field and spelling variant to specify, use the Advanced Search “Indexing field” option which searches all index fields simultaneously including Descriptors and Identifiers. CABI adds US spelling variants of any index terms to the Identifier field, so searching the “Indexing Term” super field which automatically includes Identifiers, will automatically pick up any spelling variants.

Use double quotes “” for exact matching of words and phrases, and to disable stemming.

Use quotation marks to find results containing an exact word or phrase, for example “medicinal plants” brings back only results matching this precise phrase, rather than results containing both words separately anywhere in the text.

• Importantly, wildcards – both * and ? are ignored when using quotes and will cause a search error.

• Within phrases in quotes AND, OR, NOT are treated as words which are part of the search expression, not Boolean operators.

• Proximity Operators are ignored within quotes

Truncation or wildcards can be used to find variants:

• An asterisk * matches any number of characters. For example, duoden* matches duodenal, duodenectomy, and so on.

• A questionmark ? can be used to match 0 or any single character. For example, l?st matches last, lest, list, and so on.

• Truncation will not work within quotes, please don’t use * or ? when enclosing phrases or words in quotes as this will cause a search error.

To do a proximity search, use quotation marks around terms you wish to specify followed by a tilde ~ and a number indicating the maximum number of words separating the terms.

• For example, “metabolic mechanism”~3 searches for the words metabolic and mechanism within 3 words of each other.

• Please note that Proximity operators are ignored within quotation marks.

Use Parentheses or Curved Brackets to group search terms when combining three or more terms with different Boolean operators, to indicate the order of search. Terms enclosed within parentheses/brackets are processed together first by the search engine. For example, "care AND (cat OR dog)" searches for documents containing care and either cat or dog.

To avoid search errors when converting searches saved on CAB Direct to the CABI Digital Library:

Change any Boolean operators applied between terms to capitals AND, OR, NOT.

If your saved search included phrases or words truncated with wildcards and enclosed in quotes, you now need to replace the truncated terms with the actual word variants you wish to find, to avoid getting search errors.

• For example, if your previous CAB Direct search expression contained the phrase “community farm*” you could replace it with the following: “community farm” OR “community farms” OR “community farming” OR “community farmed” to ensure similar results are returned and to avoid any search errors.

Please avoid overuse of wildcards, especially for single words, as this may slow down search performance.

Pay particular attention to the positioning of brackets (parentheses) in long searches when combining multiple phrases with Boolean Operators, to ensure that the search logic is working correctly. Alternatively you may wish to break down your search into sub-component searches and use the Recent Searches ‘Combine Searches’ feature to combine those sub-components, to ensure that the overall Boolean search logic is applied correctly.

Whenever possible search using CABI’s controlled vocabulary to ensure best matches. For example if you are doing a search on ‘alternative medicines’ search the descriptor term field, so search de: “complementary and alternative medicine” which will automatically retrieve the majority of records that match this topic. This may help you reduce the overall length of the search and ensure you retrieve the best matching results.

Bear in mind that word stemming is not applied to CABI’s indexing fields, so please use the CAB Thesaurus to look up exact terms.

If you have any doubts about recreating saved searches from CAB Direct, please feel free to contact us at suppot@cabi.org