Limiting the search

By entering a search term, you can search through the entire collection of publications. If you are only looking for particular information, please narrow down your search by selecting the appropriate click boxes:

• Documents in electronic format only – limits the search to documents available as full-text documents in electronic form
• Key literature – limits the search to literature recommended by the relevant division (this feature is only available in searches for subject-related documentation, not for GTZ publications)

Entering and combining search terms

Text entry boxes (title and author)

• AND – combine terms using space (example: evaluation management)
  Means "find both terms". The list of results only shows documents that contain both search terms.
• OR – combine terms using * (example: evaluation * management)
  Means "either / or". The list of results shows documents that contain one or both of the search terms. This kind of search produces a long list of results, as the results for each separate search term are added together.
• NOT – combine terms using - (example: evaluation - management)
  Means "yes, but...". Certain terms are excluded. (In the example given above, the search would find documents on evaluation, but would exclude ones on management).
• Truncating search terms (wildcard search) by entering the root word (example: develop)
  This allows you to search for all terms that begin with “develop”, e.g. “developing”, “developed”, “developmental” etc.
• Special characters – Please avoid entering the special characters / “ ” & [ ] # €. If, for example, you wish to search for HIV/AIDS, you should type in “HIV * AIDS” (using the AND operator). For German words, umlauts (ä,ö,ü) can be entered as they are (i.e. you do not need to type in ae, oe, ue etc.), but you should use “ss” rather than “ß”.

Scroll-down lists (keywords, country, year of publication, institution)

• If you do not select an item, the search will cover all terms.
• The scroll-down lists are linked by an AND operator, i.e. the search is narrowed down (example: by selecting “Egypt” and “poverty”, you will find all the results that contain the terms “poverty” and “Egypt”).
• You may select up to ten terms in the scroll-down lists. To do so, press and hold the Ctrl key and mark the required terms using the left mouse button. These terms are linked using an OR operator, i.e. the search is extended (example: by selecting “poverty” and “food security”, the search will come up with all documents that contain either the term “poverty” or the term “food security”).