The TRB Publication Index search screen lets you choose the field(s) to be searched - title, author, series, or keyword:

Combine fields, if desired, by selecting AND, OR or NOT in the box to the left of any field and entering appropriate data in the selected fields.

Words or phrases entered in the keyword field are retrieved from title, abstract, conference title, or index term fields in the TRB Publications Index database records.

The Boolean operators AND/OR/NOT can be used to combine keywords, dates, authors and other search terms as follows:

Word Wheels	Click on Word Wheel button, to select words from a browsable list. For example, if you click the Word Wheel button next to a box labeled "Author", you see a list of authors. By pasting an item such as Smith BA into a box, you can search all documents written by BA Smith. This eliminates trial-and-error searching and produces more accurate results.
Date Range Searching	Use the > (greater than), = equal to, and < (less than) or a combination of these symbols for searching a range of dates. Example: >1989 searches for all records in the database published after December 31, 1989.
Phrases	The system searches the keywords exactly as entered and assumes that two keywords next to each other are a phrase. Example: To search for "snow removal", enter snow removal in the keyword box.
Wild Cards	To search word stems, use the asterisk (* ) for truncation. Example: computer* retrieves computer, computers, computerization, computerized, etc.
Proximity Searching	To find two words within n words of one another, use the W# operator. Example: railroad W3 crossings retrieves railroad highway grade crossings or railroad grade crossings or railroad crossings.
Author Searching	The system uses the author's last name followed by a space, then initials with no punctuation. Example: for the author Robert E. Smith enter Smith RE in the author field.