Help

At CABI we’re focused on providing the best user experience we can, helping you find answers to your questions quickly, easily and accurately.

For help on using the Forest Science internet resource and its various features, we have produced a number of training resources which can be found below. As well as these handy materials we also conduct live online training webinars to demonstrate common tasks and introduce the various site features available. To see our webinar calendar and to register for a place, please visit our training page.

Our training team also provide an on-site training service. These live product demonstrations help teach multiple staff members the various features of Forest Science and other subscription products at your location. Please contact your CABI sales representative or email our training team training@cabi.org for further information.

User Guide

This comprehensive user guide explains how to perform common tasks such as site searches, refining results and advanced field searching as well as unique features including My Forest Science Database. It also provides useful reference lists for when performing more advanced tasks such as field tags and subject codes.

Video Training

	Introduction and simple searching This series of videos will provide an overview about navigation around the site, simple searching and how to use smart searches to create complex searches.
	Advanced searching This series of videos will show you how to perform accurate database searches using field searching and limiters from the advanced searching page.

Quick help guide

Search

There are a number of ways to perform a search in Forest Science Database. You can search using the main search box that appears on every page.

You simply describe the subject of your search as you would in any popular search engine. You can also perform more complex searches here using Boolean logic (AND, OR, NOT) N.B. always place the Boolean logic in uppercase / capital letters).

Use quotes to search for an exact set of words such as "tree diseases".

You can also use bracketing so that certain parts of your search are performed together e.g. (pine OR spruce) AND (silviculture OR "silvicultural systems").

To exclude materials you do not want you can select the type of information that you want by clicking on the "filter by type" box; whether it be abstracts, books, CABI held full text documents, datasheets, events, miscellaneous items, news articles or reviews.

Topic Pages

Near the top of the page (below the CABI logo) there are buttons that take you to topic pages, which focus on information relevant to each topic.

When you go to a particular topic page (e.g. agroforestry) any search is automatically limited to that particular topic (as defined by our subject experts). To search within other topic areas click the "search within topic" box and select the appropriate topic you wish to search. If all boxes are deselected then a complete site search is performed.

On the search results page filter your search further by adding additional terms from the right hand column.

Smart Searches

We have also launched the Smart Search feature. You will find this on the large tab above the search box.

These are searches on key topics created by our experts to save you time. We will create new Smart Searches if you request them and these will be made available to all users from this tab. 

Forestry Abstracts, Forest Products Abstracts and Agroforestry Abstracts

These subsets are no longer available as separate online products but the records in these subsets are within Forest Science Database. The subsets of bibliographic records corresponding to Forestry Abstracts, Forest Products Abstracts and Agroforestry Abstracts can be searched in Forest Science Database using the relevant ‘subject codes’ (sc) which define these subsets and continue to be updated weekly.

Forestry Abstracts – sc:0f

Forest Products Abstracts – sc:1f

Agroforestry Abstracts – sc:7y

For example, to limit your search to records in Forestry Abstracts, enter sc:0f in the main search box.

My Forest Science Database

This personalisation feature will provide you with your own workspace within Forest Science Database to:

• save both individual and numerous records
• export your saved records 
• save your searches
• subscribe to saved searches via RSS and e-mail alerts so that you are made aware of the latest content

CAB Thesaurus

Use the CAB Thesaurus, our controlled vocabulary used to index all database records, to choose the best terms to search bibliographic records on the Forest Science database.