# Spires search

The spires search function merely passes your search queries onto the Spires web search, so you should build your queries in the same way, except omitting the find or fin command. This help page will only give a brief introduction to the search queries. More extensive help on searching Spires can be found on the page http://www.slac.stanford.edu/spires/hep/help/index.shtml.

Your query can be composed of several parts, combined using and and or as logical operators. Each part is composed of a letter or word indicating the type of field to search, followed by a space and the text to search for.

The following list shows some of the field indicators that can be used:

- a or author: search author names
- t or title: search in title
- j: journal. Here either the common abbreviation or the 5 letter CODEN abbreviation for a journal can be used. Volume and page can also be included, separated by commas. For instance, j Phys. Rev.,D54,1 looks in the journal Phys. Rev., volume D54, page 1.
- k: search in keywords

Example queries:

- a smith and a jones: search for references with authors "smith" and "jones"
- a smith or a jones: search for references with either author "smith" or author "jones"
- a smith and not t processor: search for author "smith" and omit references with "processor" in the title