Help on searching the data - Solanaceae Source

Planetary Biodiversity Inventory Solanum: A worldwide treatment (http://www.nhm.ac.uk/solanaceaesource/)

Searching the data

Below you'll find instructions on how you can search the data on Solanaceae Source. If you want an explanation of what you can search for, take a look at an outline of the data available.

The search tool spans the title area of each page:

Solanaceae Source search tool.

It allows you to:

select a search category: which defines which type of records will be returned by your search e.g. names, descriptions (accepted names that have descriptive data), specimens, images, or bibliographic records;
select a data element: which defines the particular type of data to search;
enter a search term: where you can type in a set of characters to search for (by default the search will return all records where the search term is contained within the data element you selected);
select a filter (optional): which gives you additional options to restrict the records returned.
search: selecting this button begins a new search using the criteria you have just specified;
or, search within results: selecting this button allows you to narrow down your previous search results using the criteria you have just specified.

Select a search category

You can choose to search either names, specimens, descriptions, images or bibliographic records by selecting the corresponding search category tab:

Screen shot of the Solanaceae Source search tool, with search categories highlighted.

The current search category can be changed by selecting the corresponding tab at the top of the search tool, in this figure the category "specimens" has been selected.

When you select a category you'll notice the tab is highlighted and the search tool may change slightly to include the different data elements that are associated with the category you've chosen. You'll also notice that the content on the page will change, this is because when you select a different search category the Web site will, if you've already been looking for something, immediately activate a search in this new category to try and find what you were looking for before.Select a data element

Once you have selected which category of records you want to return you can then select the specific data element that you want to search for, these are listed in the first drop-down select box:

Screen shot of the Solanaceae Source search tool, with data element drop down select box highlighted.

The data element you want to search can be selected from the first drop down box, in this figure "country" is being selected.

Enter a search term

Screen shot of the Solanaceae Source search tool, with the search term input text box highlighted.

Enter a text string into the search box containing all or part of the characters you want to look for. In this figure the search term being entered is "peru".

Screen shot of the Solanaceae Source search tool, with search filter drop down select box highlighted.

You can further restrict the records returned by choosing a predefined filter. For example, in this figure when searching for "specimens" you can choose to only show "type" specimens in the results.