National Trade Data Bank (SuDocs Number: C 1.88:) Jennifer McMullen, The College of Wooster SCOPE The National Trade Data Bank (NTDB) CD-ROM contains a wide spectrum of trade-related information from 15 major federal agencies. The 2-disc set is published monthly. SEARCHING This database uses a Windows interface and gives you four different options for searching the database (title, source, program, commodity, location, date, and text words): Basic Search - Select one index (as listed above) by clicking on your choice in the list. - Click on the search box and type in the word(s) you want to search. To find out how many times a word is used, select "Word List," type the term you wish to find and click on the "Position" button. If you wish to add a term from the Word List, highlight the word and click on "Add." Then select "Return" to go back to the Basic Search screen. - If you wish to search more than one word as a phrase, indicate this in the box on the next line. To indicate how closely the words should appear (within a certain number of words), select a number from the list below this box. - Click on "Start Search." Structured Search This follows the same procedure of selecting an index and typing in words as the Basic Search, but it allows you to combine a search in one index with another by using Boolean operators. Free Form Search Type your search query in the box provided. If you wish to use Boolean operators, you will need to type them in. Click on "Start Search" to begin. Browse by Program For those who are familiar with the programs on the NTDB, this option provides an alphabetical listing of the programs on the disc. To select any file, click on the title you would like to see and continue choosing from the submenus until you have reached your file. Then click on "View Document" to see the highlighted title. VIEWING RESULTS In all search options except the Browse by Program (which takes you directly to a file), your search strategy will result in a brief list of files containing each file's title, source, program, document ID, and date. The normal appearance of the list only covers the top half of the screen; to use the full screen for viewing, pull down the View menu and select Zoom List Screen. Then when you wish to see an actual file, click on the title to highlight and pull down the View menu to select Zoom Text Screen. (Both commands are also indicated by the last two command buttons at the top of the screen.) When viewing a file, you will notice that the terms you used in your search strategy are highlighted in red. If you wish to move from one appearance of your search term to another, select the Next Highlight button from the command button bar at the top of the screen. PLEASE NOTE that unless you pull down the "File" menu and select "Close," your file will remain open in an active window while you run another search. REFINING SEARCHES Use the following approaches to refine your search if the results are too large or too small. To return to your search box, select the appropriate command button (depicting a magnifying glass) or pull down the "Search" menu and select your option. Broadening - To retrieve more than 20 files (the default), pull down the Options menu, select Max Docs, and type in a new retrieval limit. - To use the Boolean operator OR in the Structured Search, select the appropriate button and fill in your additional term. - To use the Boolean operator OR in the Free Form Search, type the phrase #OR followed by your search terms in parentheses. Narrowing - To use the AND and BUT NOT Boolean terms in the Structured Search, select the appropriate button and fill in your additional term(s). - To use these Boolean terms in the Free Form Search, type #BAND or #BANDNOT followed by your search terms in parentheses. [Example: #BAND (book france)] DOWNLOADING Pull down the "File" menu at the top of the screen and select "Save List" if you wish to download the list of results or "Save File" if you have selected a particular file. The program will prompt you for a path and filename. Please download to the A: drive (3.5" diskette) or the B: drive (5.25" floppy). You can also use either of the Save command buttons at the top of the screen (depicting a diskette) and follow the same procedures. PRINTING Pull down the "File" menu and select either "Print List" or "Print File" as above. You can also use either of the Print command buttons at the top of the screen. Your results should print to the attached printer. Please notice that the printer attached to the workstation may be hooked to a switcher box. If you intend to print, be sure the switcher is set to print from your station. COMMANDS: EXITING, STARTING A NEW SEARCH, ETC. - To exit, pull down the "File" menu from the top of the screen and select "Exit" or click the Exit button on the command button line. - To start a new search, pull down the "Search" menu and select a search method or select the appropriate Search button from the command bar. HELP? Click on the Help button on the command button line at any time and select a topic from the list. You can also search the help files by keyword. If you need additional assistance, please contact a Documents Librarian. Jennifer McMullen, The College of Wooster, 7/28/97