Introduction to PvH research:

Beginners tutorial for the PvH tool:

Using PIO

Q:How can I get access to PIO?
Q:Where can I get help using PIO?
Q:How do I find records in PIO?
Q:What are UK Parliament Index Terms?
Q:What are COPAC Terms?
Q:How do I browse PIO
Q: How do I search PIO?
Q:What information is displayed in the search results?
Q:What order are the search results sorted in?
Q:How can I see more pages of search results?
Q:Where Can I Obtain Hard Copies of Publications on PIO?

Accessibility

Q:Can I change the background or foreground colours or contrasts on PIO?
Q:What is the maximum font size and does text re-flow?
Q:Are there keyboard-only equivalents for all mouse actions?
Q:Are there short cut keys to reduce tabbing?
Q:Is text marked up to allow meaningful navigaion?
Q:Can text be selected and read by text-to-speech tools?
Q:Are there alternative text descriptions available for all relevant images?

A:How can I get access to PIO?

PIO is a paid-subscription website, so to access the content you will need to subscribe.  When you subscribe, you or your organisation will be issued with a username and password, enabling you to access the content on the site.  We can also provide access using Athens authentication or by IP range.

Subscription is by Parliamentary session.  Once paid for you can access all publications on PIO which are issued in that Parliamentary session.  You will have access to these documents for ever.

A:Where Can I Get Help Using PIO?

The search pages come with context sensitive help, but please see below for advice on searching.

For help with anything that is not covered below please email the PIO webmaster for help with queries on any aspect of the service.  Email us on support@publicinformationonline.com

A:How do I find records in PIO?

There are two different ways of finding records in PIO:

• Browsing – You can browse the different records in each Parliament by Category, Corporate Author name (UK Parliament only), Committee name (Scottish Parliament only) or by paper number.
  
• Searching – You can perform advanced searches enabling you to specify in detail the records you are looking for.

A:What are UK Parliament Index Terms?

PIO uses the House of Commons Library subject index terms. The House of Commons Library thesaurus contains over 5000 terms and is constantly updated to include new and more relevant references. Although the records held on PIO are updated each day, there will sometimes be small delays in the currency of the House of Commons information, particularly at times when a large number of documents are published. Those searching under subject index terms should therefore be aware that the most recent papers may not be included in the search results.

Index terms for papers are not currently added to PIO. We hope to have these back in the future 

A:  What are COPAC Terms?

We take our non Parliamentary index terms from COPAC which include the following:

• TI - Title
• AU - Author, Editor, Translator, etc.
• MV - Volume and title details of a volume in a multi-volume work
• SE - Series Title
• ED - Edition
• SC - Scale information for maps
• PU - Pulisher details
• PY - Publication year
• PD - Physical description
• DT - Document type
• LA - Language
• IS - ISBN or ISSN
• NT - Notes
• KW - Subject details (Keywords)

A:   How do I Browse PIO?

Parliamentary Material

In order to browse the Parliamentary records in Public Information Online, you must first select the Parliament that you wish to look in. Then simply select the category of paper you would like to browse from the navigation menu.

You can now browse the displayed results by using the drop down boxes at the top of the screen to narrow the selection either by a particular Parliamentary session, or to sort the results either numerically or alphabetically by title.

Non-Parliamentary Material

Non-Parliamentary material is categorised by Corporate Author. To view the papers, simply choose which corporate author you wish to look at. Within each corporate author, the papers are grouped by year. Once you have chosen your year via the dropdown box, you can then view the papers either by month within that year or alphabetically by title.

For ease of browsing, some corporate authors such as the Office for National Statistics have an additional level of categorisation. Titles that are published periodically are grouped together e.g. Population Trends would be a choice within Office of National Statistics.

A:How do I search PIO?

The search facility within PIO allows you to refine your results using several criteria. Listed below are the various ways that results can be narrowed.

Parliament

By default, you will search across all of the Parliaments that you are subscribed to. By clicking on "Select..." you will able to refine your search to only show results from a particular parliament.

You can choose to search Non-Parliamentary material only by choosing Non-Parliamentary in the Parliaments list.

Session:

By default you will search across all sessions you are subscribed to. By clicking on "Select..." you can refine the search by selecting sessions.

Non-Parliamentary material is grouped by year. Results for the Non-Parliamentary material will automatically be included in the default search unless changed.

Categories:

As with 'Session' above, the default search will be carried out across all categories but by clicking on "Select...' you can narrow the search by clicking the tick boxes for the different publication categories.

Number:

Searching by Paper number is enabled numerically. e.g. to search for 'House of Lords Paper 144' you should enter '144' or 'HL 144'. Not 'House of Lords Paper 144'

Published under ISBN:

You can search by ISBN If you know the ISBN of the document you are looking for.

Date From and Date To:

You can search within a specific date range by using the calendar icons next to 'Date From' and 'Date To'.  Simply click on the calendar icon and a box appears showing the current month.  You can either choose a date from this month by clicking on it, or you can use the left/right triangles in the top corners of this box to navigate forwards or backwards a month at a time.

By clicking on the displayed month eg ‘November 2007’, all 12 months of the year will be displayed.

You can either select a month by clicking on it or click the displayed year e.g. '2007' to display a choice of 12 years.  These can be navigated in the same way as the days/months.

Title Search and Keyword Search:

Terms

To search for the exact phrase only, and not variations, tick the box "Exact match". This will search for the exact phrase "natural selection" only.

Multiple terms can be combined together with Boolean operators to form a more complex query (see below).

Note: The analyzer used to create the index will be used on the terms and phrases in the query string. So it is important to choose an analyzer that will not interfere with the terms used in the query string.

Term Modifiers

Wildcard Searches

te?t

test*

te*t

Fuzzy Searches

roam~

roam~0.8

Proximity Searches

"Galapagos species"~10

Boosting a Term

Lucene provides the relevance level of matching documents based on the terms found. To boost a term use the caret, "^", symbol with a boost factor (a number) at the end of the term you are searching. The higher the boost factor, the more relevant the term will be.

Boosting allows you to control the relevance of a document by boosting its term. For example, if you are searching for

Galapagos species

and you want the term "Galapagos" to be more relevant boost it using the ^ symbol along with the boost factor next to the term. You would type:

Galapagos^4 species

This will make documents with the term Galapagos appear more relevant. You can also boost Phrase Terms as in the example:

"Galapagos species"^4 "Charles Darwin"

By default, the boost factor is 1. Although the boost factor must be positive, it can be less than 1 (e.g. 0.2)

Boolean Operators

Boolean operators allow terms to be combined through logic operators. Lucene supports AND, "+", OR, NOT and "-" as Boolean operators (Note: Boolean operators must be ALL CAPS).

The OR operator is the default conjunction operator. This means that if there is no Boolean operator between two terms, the OR operator is used. The OR operator links two terms and finds a matching document if either of the terms exist in a document. This is equivalent to a union using sets. The symbol || can be used in place of the word OR.

To search for documents that contain either "natural selection " or just "selection" use the query:

"natural selection" selection

or

"natural selection" OR selection

AND

The AND operator matches documents where both terms exist anywhere in the text of a single document. This is equivalent to an intersection using sets. The symbol && can be used in place of the word AND.

To search for documents that contain "natural selection " and "Charles Darwin " use the query:

"natural selection" AND "Charles Darwin"

+

To search for documents that must contain "Galapagos" and may contain "selection" use the query:

+Galapagos selection

NOT

"natural selection" NOT "Charles Darwin"

NOT "natural selection"

-

"natural selection" -"Charles Darwin"

Grouping

(natural OR selection) AND Darwin

Field Grouping

title:(+origin +"natural selection")

Escaping Special Characters

+ - && || ! ( ) { } [ ] ^ " ~ * ? : \

\(1\+1\)\:2

Corporate Author

The Search Results page displays a list of all the records that matched your search query.  From here, you can see brief details of the document and link through to the record for each document.

Each entry consists of:

• Paper Number.
• The date of publication
• The publication title
• The Corporate Author  
• The ISBN

• Class
• Description/Extent of publication
• Notes
• Brief Abstract

   A:What order are the search results sorted in?

Search results are sorted in order of relevance, i.e. the records most appropriate to your search are at the top of the list.

You can choose to have search results displayed either:

• Alphabetically – All results are sorted alphabetically by TITLE.
• Categorically - All papers of the same type (eg Bills) are grouped together.
• Chronologically – Earliest documents are displayed first.

   A:How can I see more pages of search results?

The Search Results page displays ten results per page.

• If there are more than 10 pages of results click 'Next>' to see the next ten pages of results.  To go to the previous ten pages of results, click '<Previous'.
• To go to the last page of results, click 'Last>>'.
• To go to the first page of results click '<<First'.

   A:Where Can I Obtain Hard Copies of Publications on PIO?

All publications listed on PIO are available to download free of charge for subscribers but hard copies of each publication can be purchased separately from Dandy Booksellers Ltd www.publicinformationonline.com/shop +44(0)207 624 2993 orders@dandybooksellers.com

A: Can I change the background or foreground colours or contrasts?

PIO utilises black text on white background to ensure best accessibility. Users can not currently change colours or contrasts.

A:What is the maximum font size and does text re-flow?

The maximum font size on Public Information Online is 24. When the font is enlarged, text will re-flow automatically so you won't miss any important information.

A: Are therekeyboard-only equivalents for all mouse actions?

There are not currently keyboard-only equivalents for all mouse actions. However, this functionality is something that we hope to add in future development.

A: Are there anyshort cut keys to reduce tabbing?

There are not currently any short cut keys to reduce tabbing around links. However, this functionality is something that we hope to add in future development.

A:Is text marked up to allow meaningful navigation?

Yes!. Text such as headings have been marked up to aid meaningful navigation. 

A: Can text be selected and read by text-to-speech tools?

Yes! PIO does support the use of text-to-speech tools when text is selected.

A: Are there alternative text descriptions available for all relevant images?

There are not currently alternative text descriptions for all graphics and images on PIO. However, this functionality is something that we hope to add in future development.