Using ESML

Searching EMs or the ESML bibliography

ESML provides two ways of finding EMs – using pre-defined filters or text search.  The same methods can be applied to information about source documents listed in the ESML bibliography.

Searching EMs using pre-defined filters

ESML’s pre-defined filters are more powerful for most uses because they examine EMSL classification-based descriptors (see Descriptors used by ESML pre-defined filters).  Every EM in ESML has been systematically classified according to many descriptors of interest to users (such as environment type, location, ecosystem services, variable names and variable positions).  The filters can be used in combination to increase search specificity.

Text searching for EMs

Text searching accesses a limited set of ESML free-text descriptors (see Descriptors searched in text searching).  Results are dependent on word choice, which is less dependable than classification, but logic can be used to increase search specificity.

Searching the ESML Bibliography

The same methods can be used to search the ESML Bibliography.  Source documents can be filtered by author, year and journal, and text searching can be applied to all bibliographic entries in ESML.  However, ESML does not contain the source documents themselves; source document text cannot be searched.