1. Crop Protection Compendium Instruction Manual
A self-teaching and reference tool 3. The bibliographic database
Created in support of CABI’s Action on Invasives Programme

2. This manual was produced as part of Action on Invasives, CABI’s growing programme to strengthen and co-ordinate the national and regional management of invasive species, which will help to reverse a threat that has an estimated annual economic impact of more than US$1.4 trillion worldwide.
Cover Picture: Phaseolus vulgaris (common bean); picked beans. Mercado Central de Valencia, Spain. June Copyright: 16:9clue/via wikipedia - CC BY 2.0.

3. The aims of the third part of this training manual are to:
Demonstrate the Compendium Bibliographic database with some useful search strings
Show linkage between datasheets and bibliographic records
Describe the structure of bibliographic records and how they are displayed
Show how to construct searches of specific bibliographic record fields
In this self-learning slide show manual there are notes relating to each slide.
It should be possible to follow this teaching tool without reading the notes.
However, the notes give a little more information regarding the activities illustrated in the slides and about the Compendium in general. They would also be useful to anyone using this slide series as a visual aid in demonstrating to others.

4. Crop Protection Compendium: Bibliographic, or ‘Abstracts’ database
To list the entire collection of bibliographic records (new ones added weekly); click on the ‘Filter by type’ button, select ‘Abstract’, then click ‘Search’’. Sort search results by Date (Recent First) to see the most recently added records..
As well as datasheets, the Compendium provides access to over 440,000 bibliographic records, most of which contain abstracts and of which about 50,000 also contain links to full text documents.
This collection of bibliographic records is a crop protection-related sub-set of the CAB Abstracts database, which is the most comprehensive database on agriculture and the environment in the world, with over eight million bibliographic records.
The collection of bibliographic records in the Compendium is updated weekly, the most recently added records can be seen by clicking the ‘Abstracts’ tab visible on the Home Page. By default, the most recently added records are shown.

5. Bibliographic records – linkage with datasheets
Where possible, references within datasheets are linked with the corresponding bibliographic record, and it is possible to view that record, by clicking on it in the Reference list.
Click a linked reference to view the corresponding Bibliographic record

6. Bibliographic references and full text
Bibliographic information
The full information for a bibliographic record can also be reached by clicking the article title in the search results list.
As well as the full abstract, the page will include the full bibliographic information and indexing keywords that were assigned to the record during the indexing process. This can be found under the Abstract details pane on the right of the page.
All these terms are intuitive links which when clicked perform a search on that term.
Metadata; indexing terms, record number, etc.

7. Bibliographic records and Full text: Searching specific fields
The Crop Protection Compendium allows you to conduct advanced field searching using the index Field Tags. Field searching is a technique by which users can search for keywords in specific indexing fields. Each indexing field has an associated Field Tag which can be used in conjunction with search keywords to return a more precise set of results.
The Field Tags above can be used directly in the Home page search box. For example; ‘od:(Tuta absoluta)’ is a search for all bibliographic records where ‘Tuta absoluta’ is used as an ‘Organism Descriptor’.
Alternatively, the Advanced Datasheet Form can be used to construct searches using these ‘Field Tags’ without having to look them up.

8. Advanced Bibliographic Search
Advanced-Field Tag searches can be typed straight into the Home page search box. However, the Advanced Bibliographic Search link retrieves a form by which these strings can be constructed without prior knowledge of prefixes required for different reference fields.

9. The Advanced Bibliographic Search form can be used to construct complex bibliographic record search strings without the need to know specific prefixes (Field Tags) for fields such as article title or descriptors (= keywords), as used in the illustrated example. Date and language filters can also be applied to searches using the search form.

10. Bibliographic database: more on Metadata searching
If you are looking only for important papers on a particular subject, where you want a high level of relevance, you should restrict your search to one or more of the CABI indexing or Descriptor fields.
Every record on the database is indexed with terms that describe all the important concepts within a paper. The index terms may be added to one of 5 different indexing fields. The indexing fields that CABI uses are shown in this slide.
Standard indexing terms are listed in the CAB Thesaurus ( The CAB Thesaurus is a vital tool when conducting specific searches of indexing fields.
Please note: When searching the organism descriptor all animals are indexed with their scientific names. Plants are indexed with both their scientific and their common names.

11. Bibliographic database: Super indexes
Super indexes allow users to search multiple indexes across related fields. They are useful tools for users if they are unsure which fields they need to specify when trying to conduct advanced field searching. They can be searched in the same way as other fields as the super indexes have their own field tag associated to them.
The first two super indexes shown in the table are used when searching bibliographic information relating to either the article title or the article authors. The table below shows the field tag, field indexes that are searched and an example of a search.
The third super index called the subject index is used when searching for the indexing terms or metadata that is recorded or assigned to each record. The table shows the field tag, field indexes that are searched and an example of a search.

12. Bibliographic database: some example searches…
Full Text articles
Description: This search finds all full text records in the Compendium
Search string: sc:ft
The interception and/or quarantine of pest species
Description: This search finds general records relating to the interception and quarantine of pest species
Search string: de:(pests) AND (de:interception OR quarantine)
Insect vectors of plant diseases
Description: This search finds records on insect vectors of plant diseases
Search string: (de:"disease vectors" AND "insect pests") AND (de:"plant diseases" OR "plant pests")
New geographic records of Callidiellum rufipenne since 1 January 2000
Description: This search finds new geographic records of Callidiellum rufipenne (Japanese cedar longhorn beetle) added to the database since 1 January 2000.
Search string: (id:Callidiellum rufipenne) AND (de:new geographic records) AND ex:[ TO *]
Searching bibliographic records is a training subject in its own right. There are a number of free resources available from the website giving advice and guidance in searching bibliographic databases. Try our Resources for Database users at

13. Self-test activities
Open a Pest datasheet of interest to you, take a look at the references and click on one in blue font to open the bibliographic record for the reference.
Under ‘Abstract details’, click on the indexing term for the species in question under ‘Organism descriptor(s)’ and use the Filter by type - Full text tick box to see if any of the records have links to a PDF document.
Carry out a search of the bibliographic database to retrieve records on a particular species of interest that also relate to interception or quarantine.

14. After using this training manual on the Crop Protection Compendium you should be able to…
Apply bibliographic searching techniques to interrogate the Compendium’s Abstracts database
Gain some familiarity with the concept of searching within specified fields of bibliographic records
Filter search results for Full Text records, or records indexed with particular terms, author names, etc.

15. This manual was produced as part of Action on Invasives, CABI’s growing programme to strengthen and co-ordinate the national and regional management of invasive species, which will help to reverse a threat that has an estimated annual economic impact of more than US$1.4 trillion worldwide.