| AB = Abstract
|
LA = Language
|
| AF = Author
Affiliation |
NT = Notes |
| AN = Accession
Number |
NU = Other Numbers |
| AU = Author
|
OT = Original
Title |
| CA = Corporate
Author |
PB = Publisher |
| CF = Conference
|
PT = Publication
Type |
| CL =
Classification |
PY = Publication
Year |
| DE = Descriptors |
SF = Subfile |
| ED = Editor |
SL = Summary
Language |
| IB = ISBN
|
SO = Source
|
| ID = Identifiers |
TI = Title
|
| IS = ISSN
|
UD = Update
|
MGA Field
Labels and Search Tips:
In General, these are
the Field Labels that appear in an MGA record. Not all
Field Labels are present in all records.
AB = Abstract
Field
The abstract includes key points of the source
article. Most records have abstracts and when
available, authors' abstracts are used, although they
may be edited to CSA style. Every word is searchable;
however, to find precisely what you want, use only
distinctive words and phrases. In selected source
material where available, abstracts in languages other
than English may be added. These are appended to the
end of the English abstract and follow the words
Original Abstract. If a record only contains a foreign
language abstract, it will be the only text appearing
in the AB field.
AF = Author
Affiliation
This field includes the Lead author affiliation. There
is only one affiliation included and it corresponds to
the First Author unless otherwise indicated.
AN = Accession
Number
This is a unique number assigned to each record. In
some databases it is a 7-digit number and to retrieve
the record with that number all 7 digits must be
entered, including any leading zeros.
AU = Author
This field contains the name(s) of the author(s) of
the source document. Currently a maximum of 14 authors
are listed per record, but this has not always been
the case. Names are usually in the format of Author,
AB. Prior to 2002, author names are in many different
formats. Best results will be found by browsing the
Author Index to see all possible combinations.
AV =
Availability
This field contains information that may help locate
the document. Often it may include other relevant
information regarding the source document.
CA = Corporate
Author
This is the name of the organization that has produced
the original source document. This field is often
present when there is no personal author field. To
search this field use the distinctive parts of the
name and do not search for designations such Corp, Co,
Company, Ltd. Etc. Often, the city and country are
also provided; in older records the following
abbreviations may still be seen -- FRG for the former
West Germany; GDR for the former East Germany, and
USSR for the former Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics.
CF = Conference
This field provides the name of the conference and
where and when it occurred; it is generally edited to
CSA style, eg:
24. Annu. Benthic Ecology Meeting, Columbia, SC (USA),
7-10 Mar 1996
All these words are
searchable, but for faster retrieval, ignore the
common words such as "annual or "annu" or "meeting"
and search for the distinctive elements only. Records
retrieved include the papers presented at the
particular meeting and the "master record" for the
complete proceedings. If you just want the master
record, use the TI= field as well, and AND the results
together to produce the final result.
CL =
Classification
The classification codes and descriptions are broad
subject headings that are specific to various
databases. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of much
of the material covered, one record may have several
classifications that correspond to different
databases. MGA uses the UDC system to classify
articles. For more information regarding the UDC
classification system,
For example:
CL=Flash Floods
CL=556.166.4
Both searches retrieve
the same number of results.
DE =
Descriptors
MGA uses a controlled list of descriptors comprised of
words and short phrases. Best results will be found by
browsing the Meteorological & Geoastrophysical Terms
using the Thesaurus Search option.
ED = Editor
This field contains the name(s) of the editor(s) of
the source document. Names are usually in the format
of Author, AB. Prior to 2002, this data was included
in the SO field or in the AU field.
ER =
Environmental Regime
This is unique to the ASFA: Aquatic Sciences &
Fisheries Abstracts database and its component
subfiles. It indicates whether a source document deals
with the marine, brackish or freshwater environment,
or any combination of these. Marine, Brackish and
Freshwater are the only values found in this field and
can be easily searched. This field may be displayed in
MGA records that have also been indexed by ASFA.
IB = ISBN
The ISBN is the International Standard Book Number.
Its purpose is to identify uniquely a book title, an
edition of a book, or a monograph produced by a
specific publisher. Each ISBN number consists of ten
digits separated into the following parts:
Group identifier (national, geographic, language, or
other type of group)
Publisher or producer identifier
Title identifier
Check digit
ID =
Identifiers
This field contains subject terms not included in the
controlled vocabulary but considered by the indexer to
be extremely relevant to the record. They may be
single word or multiple word terms. Since identifiers
are not selected from the controlled vocabulary,
different synonyms for the same subject may appear in
this field, as well as abbreviations and acronyms.
Also, company names, trademarks, the names of
legislative acts, government policies and new and
up-coming methods and procedures are often assigned as
identifiers. Like descriptors, these terms may not
appear in the title or abstract, and therefore serve
as additional ways to focus your search. Use ID=
followed by the words you want to look for in
parentheses.
IS = ISSN
The ISSN is the International Standard Serial Number
and is a unique number identifying serial publications
such as journals. The ISSN consists of two groups of
four digits in Arabic numerals, except possibly for
the last, check digit, which may be an X. This
conformity makes it easy to search for ISSNs, which
can be entered with or without the hyphen between the
two groups of four characters. Records created
previous to 2002 did not include ISSNs. ISSNs were
added to several major titles in the backfile prior to
their incorporation into IDS.
LA = Language
This indicates the language(s) of the original source
document. If there is no language field in the record,
it can be assumed the original text is in English. The
full name of each language is searchable.
NT = Notes
This field contains miscellaneous information
pertaining to the record and is meant for display
purposes only, although it is searchable.
NU = Other
Numbers
This lists any type of bibliographic number attached
to a document that is not already in its own field. It
can include report numbers, patent numbers,
dissertation codes, and for older records, even ISBNs
and ISSNs. Formats of such numbers have not been
standardized and are not predictable, therefore this
is not a good field to try and search. Its purpose is
to display additional valuable information.
OT = Original Title
The non-English language title from the source
document appears in this Original Title field if the
title is in a Roman alphabet. Title translations
appear in the Title, TI= field. No diacriticals are
represented. This is a change from MGA on CD-ROM where
the Title corresponding to the language of the article
always appears in the TI field.
PB = Publisher
This field typically occurs when the item indexed is a
book or monograph, although increasingly, more records
where the source document is a journal article, have
this field also. The Publisher field includes the name
of the publisher and the place of publication.
Previous to 2002, this data was displayable but was
not searchable.
PT =
Publication Type
Records are categorized by the generic type, physical
form or medium of the original source document, such
as "Journal article", "Conference" etc. In the CSA
databases, the following terms are searchable:
Bibliography
Book
Computer file [infrequent]
Conference
Dictionary [infrequent]
Dissertation
Drawing [infrequent]
Film [infrequent]
Journal article
Law or statute
Map
Monograph
Numerical data
Patent
Report
Review
Sound recording [infrequent]
Standard
Summary [ie, source document is abstract only]
Training manual [infrequent]
Records created prior
to 2002 were not indexed with a Document Type. All of
these documents exist in IDS as "Journal article"
PY =
Publication Year
This field contains the year in which the source
document was published. Search it as a four-digit date
SF = Subfile
Many of the major CSA databases are composed of
several subfiles merged into one comprehensive and
cohesive database. In these major databases, a subfile
name corresponds to the print product (ie, the
abstracts journal) in which the record originally
appeared. A few subfiles exist only as archives
because the print equivalent is no longer published.
In these large databases, the Subfile field can be
used to limit a search to a specific discipline.
SF=Meteorological
SF=ASFA
SL = Summary
Language
This field indicates the language(s) of abstracts
printed with the source document. Often, if the
abstract is only in English, then no summary language
displays.
SO = Source
This field contains bibliographic citation
information. If it is a journal article, the SO field
contains the Journal Title, Abbreviated Title, Volume,
Number, Page Range. Prior to 2002, the SO field does
not contain Abbreviated Titles. If the record is a
Monograph, the SO field will contain the Monograph
title.
TI = Title
This field contains the title of the source document
in English. Non-Roman titles are transliterated into
English as well. Non-English titles appear in the
Original Title, OT=, field.
TR = ASFA Input
Center Number
This is unique to the ASFA: Aquatic Sciences &
Fisheries Abstracts database and its component
subfiles. This field may be displayed in MGA records
that have also been indexed by ASFA.
UD = Update
This field indicates the date that the record was
added to IDS. The format is YYYYMM. This field is
helpful to search for the latest records that have
been added to the database.
UD=200308
