National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth
Online Literature Database
Search Instructions

The National Clearinghouse on Families & Youth (NCFY) literature database contains abstracts of more than 10,000 publications that focus on youth and family issues. The database does not contain full-text publications, but information on obtaining a publication is generally included in the abstract. NCFY-produced publications are available on-line or by contacting NCFY.

If a preliminary search gives you too many or too few results, you can use the following strategies to expand or narrow your search:

Selecting Appropriate Key Words or Phrases
Conducting Multiple Searches Within a Field
Conducting Searches Using Multiple Fields
Searching by Publication Year

Selecting Appropriate Key Words or Phrases

To expand your search: “High school volunteering,” for example, is very specific and results would be limited to those publications using that exact phrase. Searching for “volunteering” and/or “community service” would expand the search to include more publications, as would searching for other forms of the word “volunteering,” such as “volunteer” and “volunteers.” When you review the results, you can delete those publications that are not relevant.

To narrow your search: If you begin with the term “schools,” note that this is a broad term. Using “after-school programs,” for example, would yield fewer results.

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Conducting Multiple Searches Within a Field  

Conducting multiple searches within a field allows you to search for publications that have specific combinations of more than one term within a field.

You can use three different commands to narrow or expand your search within a field: “AND,” “OR,” and “NOT.” You activate these commands by using the following characters between terms within a field when conducting a search:

& (ampersand) = “and”
/ (backslash) = “or”
! (exclamation point) = “not”

Use one of these characters, with no space preceding or following, between the terms that you are searching for within a field, as in the examples below.

• The “OR” Command (/)

To expand your search to publications in which either “mentor” or “mentoring” appear as key words in the abstract:

Click on the box below the subject key words field and enter “mentor/mentoring.”

Click “Search.”

You also can use the “/” command with multiple terms. For instance, typing “mentor/mentoring/mentors” in the key words field searches for publications in which any of the three terms appear.

• The “AND” Command (&)

To narrow your search to publications containing both “mentor” and “mentoring” in the abstract, follow the instructions above, replacing the “/” command with the “&” command (mentor&mentoring”). As with the “/” command, you also can search for multiple terms using this command (mentor&mentoring&mentors).

• The “NOT” Command (!)

To narrow your search to publications containing the word “mentoring” but not the word “mentor” in the abstract, follow the instructions above, replacing the “/” command with the “!” command (“mentoring!mentor”).

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Conducting Searches Using Multiple Fields

You also can conduct searches for publications that have specific combinations of words in different fields. As above, you will use the “OR,” “AND,” and “NOT” to the left of each field for this purpose.

• The “OR” Command

To search for database entries containing a specific term in at least one of two or more selected fields, use the “OR” command. For example, to search for publications that contain the term “youth development” in either the title or the key words field:

• Enter the term “youth development” in the boxes below both the title and key words fields.
  
  
• Click the command boxes to the left of both the title and key words fields and select the “OR” command.
  
  
• Click “Search.”

• The “AND” Command

To search for database entries containing a specific term in both of two or more selected fields, use the “AND” command. For example, to search for publications that contain the term “youth development” in both the title and the key words fields:

• Enter the term “youth development” in the boxes below both the title and key words fields.
  
  
• Click on the command boxes to the left of both the title and key words fields and select the “AND” command.
  
  
• Click “Search.”

• The “NOT” Command

To search for database entries containing a specific term in one of two or more selected fields, but not the other(s), use the “NOT” command (the “NOT” command allows you to exclude a subset of a category you are searching under). For example, to search for publications that contain the term “youth development” in the title field but not the term “runaway” in the key words field:

• Enter the term “youth development” in, the box below title.
  
  
• Enter the term “runaway” in the box below key words.
  
  
• Click on the command box to the left of key words and select the “NOT” command.
  
  
• Click “Search.”

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Searching by Publication Year

Use the publication year field to limit your search to publications produced within a certain timeframe. You normally will use this field in combination with one or more other fields to narrow your search.

To search for publications that were produced before or after a certain year:

• Enter text into the boxes below the title, author, and/or key words field(s).

Make sure that “AND” appears in the command box to the left of the publication year field. (If you entered text into more than one of the other fields, make sure that “AND” appears next to each of them.)

• Click on the box below publication year.
  
  
• Enter either the “greater than” symbol (>) to search for any year after the one you enter or the “less than” symbol (<) to search for any year before the one you enter. Then enter the year. (For example, entering “>1993” searches for publications produced from 1994 forward that contain the information you entered in the title, author, and/or key words field(s).)
  
  
• Click “Search.”

To search for publications that were produced between certain years:

• Enter information into the boxes below the title, author, and/or key words field(s).

Make sure that “AND” appears in the command box to the left of the publication year field and of any other fields you are using.

• Click on the box below publication year.
  
  
• Enter the 2 years between which you wish to search, separated by a colon (:). (For example, entering “1990:2001” searches for publications produced between January 1990 and December 2001.)
  
  
• Click “Search.”

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