Telecompaper d-bites Online Help
A list of the most frequently asked questions relating to the use of the Telecompaper online database is shown below. Select the question which most closely matches your query and the link will take you to the answer.This help file has been opened in a new browser window so you can keep your position in your search request and flick through the help file at the same time.
Q. How can I search for information on the Telecompaper website?
Q. I did a search and it returned no results. Why is this?
Q. Which characters can I use in a search?
Q. Which countries are recognised?
Q. What does Boundary Matching mean?
Q. What does Exact Phrase mean?
Q. What do the full abstracts look like?
Q. Can I use boolean operators (AND,OR,NOT etc)?
Q. How are the abstracts sorted?
Q. How far back in history does the search go?
Q. How do I gain access to full abstracts?
Q. Can I download abstracts as ASCII text?
Q. I am having trouble accessing Telecompaper Online. Why is this?
Q. How do I use Telecompaper Power Search?
Q. Why is Power Search more powerful than an ordinary search?
Q. How can I search for information on the Telecompaper website?
A. Type single or multiple words into the text field to receive a list of all the articles containing these word(s). You can customise your search by limiting by date, by publication name, or by geographic scope. Advanced options such as boundary matching and exact phrase matching are also available. On RDSL, the results of your search are displayed in reverse chronological order, i.e. the most recent articles matching your search parameters are displayed first.
Q. I did a search and it returned no results. Why is this?
A. There could be several reasons for this. You may have used an unrecognised character in your search request. Go here to see which ones are valid. You may have entered too many criteria. Go here to learn about boolean operators. You may need to go further back in time in order to return some results. Go here to find out how to change the timescales over which the search operates.
Q. Which characters can I use in a search?
A. In the text box you should enter words or numbers that describe what you are looking for. For example, mobile communications would return the title of any abstract containing those two words, though not necessarily in the same order or next to each other. Words can be separated by either a space or a comma.
Only the following characters are recognised by the search engine: a-z, A-Z, 0-9
Related topics: Exact Phrase, Boundary Matching, Boolean.
Q. Which countries are recognised?
A. In the "Geographic Region" box, countries can be entered in upper or lower case, but only the English version of the country is recognised. For example Germany is recognised but Deutschland is not recognised.
Any abstract relating to the United States of America is coded as "US". Similarly, any abstract relating to England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland is coded as "UK".
If you enter more than one country, you will receive titles for abstracts relating to any one or more of those countries (equivalent to the boolean OR operator).
Related topics: Boolean Operators.
Q. What does boundary matching mean?
A. If, in the text box, you enter the word able and boundary matching is set to "match part of word", the search will return titles for abstracts containing the word able, but also abstracts containing the word table or portable, or capable etc. To avoid this, select "match whole words only".
Tip: If you want to find abstracts containing either battery or batteries you should enter batter in the text box and select "match part of word". Please do not use the asterisk * character as a wild card.
Q. What does Exact Phrase mean?
A. If you enter the words mobile communications in the text box, the search would return the title of any abstract containing those two words, though not necessarily in the same order or next to each other. However, if you also select "this exact phrase", the search will only select abstracts containing exactly the same string of characters that you have specified in the text box.
Exact Phrase can also be used in conjunction with "case sensitive" or "case insensitive".
Related topics: Characters Allowed, Boundary Matching, Boolean
Q. What do the full abstracts look like?
A. Each abstract consists of:
- Country - Title
- A few sentences summarising the most salient points of the article
- Source (the name, date and page number of the publication from which the article was abstracted)
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UK: The Internet is regularly being used by 23% of companies, according to a survey by Banner, IT marketing agency, which questioned 1,244 IT executives. Banner says that companies with fewer than 50 employees are 'lukewarm' about the medium, while companies above this threshold show steadily increasing usage. Of companies with over 500 workers, two-thirds use the Internet, with banking and utilities being the most likely to use the medium. Almost three-quarters of public sector organisations surveyed use the Internet. The most popular use of the Internet is for sending E-mail, while the least popular is job-seeking and recruitment. The average business user spends 5 h/w online. In London, UK, 39% of companies are connected to the Internet, vs a 14% Internet penetration rate in the UK counties of Humberside and Yorkshire. Netscape Navigator browser software is used by slightly more than half of the companies surveyed, almost twice as many as use Internet Explorer from Microsoft. CompuServe is the most popular ISP, followed by the increasingly popular BT and UUNET Pipex.
Financial Times 08/09/97 p19
Q. Can I use boolean operators (AND,OR,NOT etc)?
A. Boolean operators help to refine your search. You may want to narrow down your search by specifying "all of these terms", or widen your search by specifying "any of these terms". A word of caution though. Using the option "all of these terms" with a lot of words may result in no records being found that match your request.
The search engine does not recognise boolean operators entered in the text boxes. However, the button "all of these terms" acts as an AND operator, finding abstracts which contain ALL of the terms requested. Similarly, the button "any of these terms" acts as an OR operator finding abstracts which contain any one or more of the terms requested.
Q. How are the abstracts sorted?
A. The abstracts are sorted by creation date in reverse chronological order. That is to say that the newest abstracts appear first. There is a very close correlation between the publication date and the date of the abstract because our team of news editors abstracts all incoming sources on the day of receipt.
Q. How far back in history does the search go?
A. The default is one month's data. If you are a registered user, you can change this to narrow down or widen your search. The periods available are one day, one week, one month, six months or one year. However, please bear in mind that searching through one year's data may well slow down the response time.
Q. How do I gain access to full abstracts?
A. If you are a registered user, you can access full abstracts immediately. To do this, select the headline(s) of the abstract(s) you wish to retrieve. Once you have made your selections, click on the "Access full selected abstracts" button. Please note, you can select headlines from more than one screen before accessing full abstracts. To do this, click on the "View next..." or "View previous..." buttons as appropriate until you have selected as many headlines as you wish to see. Then click on "Access full selected abstracts". The headlines you select will be held in memory for you until you perform a new search or you return to the main search screen.
Q. Can I download abstracts as ASCII text?
A. Yes. If you are a registered user, the abstracts you display may be downloaded in ASCII by clicking on the "Display abstracts in straight ASCII" button. This button appears at the bottom of the list whenever full abstracts are displayed. Clicking on this button returns a screen of unformatted text which you can save and open in your text editor. For best results, we recommend you select "View Source" in your browser window, and save the source code locally as text only. Once you have saved the output, you should use your browser's back button to return to RDSL Online.
Q. I am having trouble accessing RDSL Online. Why is this?
A. Please ensure that you have entered the correct username and password. In particular, please note that both usernames and passwords are case sensitive. If you still cannot login to RDSL Online, please contact us.
Q. How do I use RDSL Power Search?
A. To use Power Search, click on the button or link which says Power Search. This will take you to a new screen with several select boxes. You can choose to search for one or more product categories, one or more event categories, and you can refine your search by country and date (as for a simple search). In order to search for more than one product or event, hold down the CONTROL key on your keyboard while selecting the categories you require. A word of caution, as with simple search, selecting too many categories will slow down your search and may result in no abstracts matching your criteria. We strongly suggest starting with a broad request, then narrowing this down in subsequent searches.
Q. Why is Power Search more powerful than an ordinary search?
A. The Power Search feature uses a different method for extracting titles from the database. When the abstracts are written, each one is given a series of codes which describe its contents. There are four types of codes:
- Event Codes (such as Company Acquisitions, New Product Developments, Market Statistics)
- Product Codes (eg Mobile Communications Equipment, Modems, Motor Instrumentation)
- Publication Code (eg Financial Times, Wall Street Journal)
- Country Codes (eg UK, GERMANY, US, JAPAN)