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Combining criteria
Searching for titles
Searching for keywords
Searching for subjects
Searching for countries and regions
Ordering Titles
Background on the Docuseek database
If your search does not return any results...
In most cases, using only keywords will give you the best results.
If you are searching for a particular title, try leaving the title area empty, and search for keywords instead.
Use the subject list or the geography list to browse for broad categories of videos.
Since many of the videos included in the Docuseek database are documentaries and/or educational works, you don't need to include "documentary" or "educational" in the keywords.
If you are looking for sources for Hollywood films, you won't find them here. Docuseek allows you to search the collections of leading documentary and instructional video distributors.
Double-check the spelling of the keywords.
Make sure search criteria from a previous search are not muddling your search. Click the Clear button to clear your existing search criteria.
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Combining criteria
Each criteria you select from each category is added to the already selected criteria. This way, you make your selection more specific. For example, if a title is specified, and a subject, both criteria must be true. (The ability to expand searches across criteria will be added soon).
Within criteria goups like grade levels or formats, any of the items may be true for a video to be selected. For example, if you check the college-level checkbox and the adult-level checkbox, if either one of those criteria are specified for a video, it will be selected by your search.
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Searching for keywords
In the summer of 2009, Docuseek switched to using a MySQL 5.0 database back-end. Keyword searches use the MySQL "natural language query" feature.
Keyword searches do not use boolean operators (like AND or OR) or wildcards. The database engine uses different algorithms for ranking keyword search results. The ranking score is displayed when search results are listed by score.
If your keyword search does not turn up any results, it may because of some technical details of MySQL's full-text search.
First, if a word appears in more that half of the database, then the keyword is ignored.
Second, MySQL ignores certain words that it considers "stopwords". These are words that appear often in English, but are not considered "content" words, including most prepositions, articles, unspecific nouns and pronouns, and many adverbs and common verbs. For a complete list of stopwords, see Full-Text Stopwords.
For complete technical details on MySQL's natural language queries, see Natural Language Full-Text Searches.
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Searching for titles
You may search for titles in one of three ways. Select a method from the popup menu.
- The default method is Starts with. The search engine will select all titles that start with the word or phrase that you enter.
- Select Contains to find all titles that contain the word or phrase that you enter.
- Select Is to exactly match the text you enter for a title.
- Select Sounds like to apply a "sounds like" function to your text. This option may get around not knowing the exact spelling of a title.
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Searching for Subjects
You may search for up to three subjects. Select a subject from the popup menu of subjects. These subjects represent a combination of the subjects identified by the distributors of the videos. You may combine the subjects by using AND or OR. Selecting AND requires a video to address both subjects, thereby narrowing your search. OR indicates that the video may address either subject, thereby widening your search.
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Searching for Countries and Regions
In addition to subjects, you may also search for up to three countries or regions. Select a country or region from the popup menu of Countries and Regions. These geographical areas represent a combination of the countries or regions identified by the distributors of the videos. You may combine the countries or regions by using AND or OR. Selecting AND requires a video to reference both regions, thereby narrowing your search. OR indicates that the video may address either region, thereby widening your search.
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Ordering Titles
To order any of the videos found on Docuseek, visit the distributor's web site.
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Background on the Docuseek database
Docuseek uses a custom database assembled from data provided by participating distributors.
Distributors are responsible for identifying key words, general subjects, and geographic areas.
Distributors specify grade levels, award data, film credits, length, and available formats. Docuseek
creates a keyword index based on keywords, subjects, descriptions, award information, and film credits.
This keyword index is used for the keyword searches. Searches that include all or part of the video title
search the title information provided by the distributor (not the keywords). Seach score is based
on an estimated relevance of the title to the keywords used in the search (based on the description, award information,
etc. as stored in the keyword index). A higher score is better.
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