The Party and Trade Union Press Release Data Base

This data base indexes the full texts of press statements released by German and foreign political parties and trade unions as well as international trade union organisations. The data base contains press services published on the Internet which are regularly saved by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation Library. This process takes place in a mostly automated fashion. If possible, the releases are saved in an almost unchanged layout.
The data base indexes, if applicable, the headline and the date of a release as well as the name of the organisation (both the official "long" name and its common abbreviation). In addition, the type of organisation (party or trade union) and the country in which it operates are also mentioned.
All these categories are available for the Search Data Base function. In addition to or alternatively to this type of search, you may Search the Full Texts of the press releases themselves.

Data Base Content

The data base is expanded constantly. A list of organisations whose press services are contained in the data base can be found via the Index Search.

The time periods covered vary greatly with each of the press services contained in the data base. The press service of the American Trade Unions's umbrella organisation, AFL-CIO, goes back the furthest - it has been captured from 1995 onwards.

If possible, the press releases have been collected continuously until today. Very rarely, capture has to be discontinued if automatic processing becomes impossible due to technical reasons. Some few other press services have stopped publishing the releases on the Internet (and, e.g., switched to e-mail distribution lists). In addition, there are organisations which do not exist any longer, e.g., the trade unions merged within Verdi. Other important organisations cannot be found in the data base at all. This is the case when collecting their press service is impossible due to technical obstacles or the frequency of publication (e.g., daily only) or if an organisation does not publish its press releases on the Internet at all.

Help for Using the Party and Trade Union Press Release Data Base

Combined Data Base Search

Thematic Search

Since the data base is built up and thus the title descriptions are generated in a mostly automated manner, the entries on the individual press releases do not contain any content-describing catchwords that have been individually allocated. Therefore, the user has only two options for conducting a thematic search:

1. Keyword search in the search mask:
   Via the "keyword" category (which should be the default in the input form to the right of the input field), users can search the following fields of the data base, which have been linked to keyword searches:
   • title (headline) of the press release
   • possible additions to the title
   • name of the organisation (full, long form and reference forms).

   So-called "stopwords", such as articles, prepositions, conjunctions, etc. cannot be searched for. Entering such a stopword will yield 0 hits.

   You can also enter several search words, separated by spaces, in each input line. In the case of compound words separated by hyphens, you can also search for the partial words coming after a hyphen. (Example: us-gentechnik-klage, gentechnik, klage).

   Title wordings tend to be highly coincidental and occur in various inflectional forms and different languages. Therefore it usually makes sense to use the "truncated" search mode. Repeating a search using different synonyms and corresponding foreign-language translations can also be helpful.
   To gain an overview of the existing material, you can use the Index Search. The search engine automatically switches over to this index search if no entries are found for a search word.

   If a search word yields more than 2,000 hits, the hits will not be displayed. In this case, enter further search words in a combined search or narrow down the period searched.

   To the search mask

2. Full Text Search in the Press Releases
   With this feature, you can search the press release texts in full. This search type mostly makes sense when used in addition to the keyword search, because some of the press releases do not have meaningful titles. For explanatory notes, see below.

   To the search mask

Searching for Press Releases by a certain Organisation

By switching the search category to "Organisation" (to the right of the input field), you can enter individual parts of a party's or trade union's name as search words. In most cases, you can also enter common abbreviations of the name as a search word - if they were captured along with the name of an organisation when it was entered for automated data processing. If your search yields 0 hits, it is therefore advisable to start a new search containing other search words.
Several words, separated by spaces, can be entered in each input field/input line.
You can search both for complete hyphenated composite words or for their individual components.

Finding out which organisations are contained in the data base is best done by means of the Index Search The search engine also switches over to the index search automatically if no entries are found for a search word.
If a search result exceeds 2,000 hits, they will not be displayed. In this case, enter further search words in a combined search or narrow down the timeframe.

To the search mask

Combined Search

You can enter several search words both in one input field and in several input fields. In the latter case, you can combine the "keyword" and "organisation" fields.
Several search words in one input field are always linked by AND operation, i.e., all words must appear in one and the same document.
The default for the link between input fields also is set to AND operation. This setting can be switched to OR operation which means that only one of the search words need appear in a document for the document to be displayed in the search result.
If the combination of search words chosen does not yield any common hits, a reduced search mask shows the number of individual hits and offers the possibility to modify the search.

To the search mask

Exact vs. Truncated Search

The search engine defaults to the "Truncated" Search Mode. This means that the engine will search for words which begin exactly like the search word entered but can end any way. This particularly makes sense when using the keyword search because titles can contain singular and plural forms, all inflections and various compound words.
Example: searchword: book --> result: the search will also yield titles containing the words books, bookmark, bookmarks, bookmarking etc.
The truncation feature works also when entering several words in one input line. The "Exact" search mode, however, is especially advisable when searching for proper names, fixed, non-declinable terms, foreign words, abbreviations, etc., and whenever the truncated search yields too many hits.

To the search mask

Searching by Country and Type of Organisation

Below the fields where you can freely enter search words, there are two further selection fields which you can use for your search:

1. Country:
   Here you can choose between "all countries" or a specific country. The only countries available for selection are those from which the press services of one or several organisations are currently captured in the data base.
2. Type of Organisation
   Here, you can narrow the search parameters down to political parties or trade unions.

These two search parameters can be used in addition to other search words in the other input fields in order to narrow down that search, or you can use them alone in a search. If you choose to use them for the latter, it is advisable to narrow down the timeframe (see below).

To the search mask

Narrowing down the Timeframe for a Search

Below the entry fields, you can narrow down the search by means of an option menu to a specific year and/or a specific month. This search parameter can only be used in addition to at least one other search category further up in the search mask.

To the search mask

Index Search in the Data Base

The indexes allow you to browse the entries of a specific data base field.
The "Search Entry Point" line allows you to enter at which point of the alphabet you want to start. It is enough to enter one single letter in the field.
Under "Lines Displayed" you can determine the length of the index excerpt to be displayed.
In the first line you finally choose the index (i.e., the data base field) which you want to browse.
Two indexes can be searched:

1. "Keyword" Index
   This is an alphabetical list of all individual words which appear in the titles of the collected press releases, the additions to the title and in organisations' names, excluding the so-called stopwords (see above). Conducting an index search in this category is mostly advisable to gain a first overview of the material contained in the index and with words for which you expect a manageable number of hits.
   For frequently occurring words it is more advisable to use the Combined Search.

   To Index Searche

2. "Organisation" Index
   This index contains the names of the organisations captured in the data base in the "long form" used by libraries which follows the RAK catalogue code (being more or less the "official" name) as well as some short forms which are either commonly used or used by the organisation itself.
   Examples: "Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands / Landesverband Bayern", "SPD Bayern", "BayernSPD";    "Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft / Landesverband <Berlin>", "GEW Berlin".
   An index search in this category will often be the fastest way to a meaningful search result but can also serve to give the user a quick overview of the data base's contents. Furthermore, the index can be used to find out an organisation's full name, which can then be used in a Combined Search.

   To Index Searche

Displaying the Search Result

Unlike the search result for combined searches (where there will either be a full display or a short list of documents found, depending of the number of hits), with the index search the entries contained in the data base from the specified point in the alphabet onwards (what one might call an index excerpt) are displayed first. Next to each entry there is an indicator of how often it appears in the data base.

Now you have two possibilities of having the press release displayed:

1. Full display of the individual hits on one individual index entry by clicking on the arrow symbol next to the number of hits or
2. Short list of hits on all index entries currently listed by clicking on "display short titles" below the list of entries. By clicking on "removing short titles" this choice can be reversed at any time.

Both types of displaying documents are only possible up to approximately 500 individual hits per entry. If the hits exceed this number, it is advisable to narrow down the search words in a combined search by entering further search parameters.

To Index Searche

Full Text Search

Preferred Settings

Before beginning the search, users can set some search parameters in the search mask for the full text search.

1. Search Mode: Users can choose the logical AND or OR operation settings as well as an 'Expert Search' function. In most cases, the AND operation should be sufficient and make the most sense. For more sophisticated search requirements it might make sense using the EXPERT SEARCH function, which allows the use of the Boolean operators AND, OR, and NOT, also in combination with brackets.
2. Hit list preference: detailed or concise.
3. Restriction of the search to one part of the data base: according to the offered drop-down list
4. Desired sorting of the hits: by relevance (recommended) or alphabetically by press release titles.
5. The number of hits to be displayed per page.

Search

Enter the terms you wish to search for in the "Search Word(s)" field, separated either by a blank charakter or by a comma. If you chose the expert search function under "Search Mode", make sure to enter Boolean operators as well. The following operators are permissible: AND, OR, NOT and round brackets ().
In order to conduct a truncated search, i.e. a search for words which begin like the search word entered but end in different ways, you may use a *.

Search Result

Depending on the chosen setting, the search result is displayed either as a concise or a detailed list of all press releases found. In both variants a hit will at least contain the title of the press release, the organisation which published it as well as the publication date. Clicking on the title will take you directly to the press release's full text.
In addition, a new mask is displayed above the result list, which allows you to refine or to change your search.

To the full text search

©Friedrich Ebert Foundation | webmaster | technical support | net edition Library of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation | 16.12.2004