Search Tips for DEA Databases

Use Tab and Shift + Tab to move around the search form quickly.

The search engine works by taking whatever text you enter and searching individually for word separated by a space character. Only records having all words will be returned. You need not provide complete words when; hence, if you are unsure about spelling, enter only the fragments which you are sure about.

Extra spaces before and after the word(s) you are searching for will be ignored. Commas and other punctuation marks are included in searches -- only space characters separate the "words" you search for. Searching is not case sensitive. For records in the database that included characters with diacritical marks, you may simply search for them using the "unaccented" form of the letter.

For example, to find the organization name record Amherst Lyceum, you could enter any of the following:

• Amherst
• lyCeUM
• Amhe
• st Ly
• Lyceum Amherst

The following will not work:

• Amherst and Lyceum
• Amherst AND Lyceum
• Amherst or Lyceum
• Amherst, Lyceum

Please do not use % (the percent sign), _ (the underscore character), $ (the dollar sign), < (the "less than" sign), or > (the "greater than" sign) when searching for records. They confuse the database.