Welcome to the new TDS search interface.
The Tobacco Documents System (TDS) has two main objectives:
1. To index and abstract previously secret tobacco industry documents released to the public through litigation in the United States. The focus is on documents concerning Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, The Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
2. To provide access to other materials relevant to smoking and health that will be useful in assembling a critical history of the tobacco industry's conduct in Australasia.
Two search modes are offered: Quick Search and Advanced Search. In both of these modes you have the option to search all fields in the database at once by entering a keyword. Keyword searching finds matches for your search term(s) in any field of a TDS record, so you will typically retrieve more information with less precision.
However, you can also search specific fields for more precise searching. The advanced search provides an easy way to do this. There are search options for specifically searching titles, authors, bates number (document reference number for industry documents), subject, document type, mentioned names, mentioned organisations and tobacco company. These searches will typically retrieve less information with more precision.
Wildcard
Purpose
Examples
?
Single character search. Useful if you are looking for singular and plurals.
Multiple character wildcard search. Useful for looking for word variations.
IMPORTANT: You cannot use these symbols as the first character of a search.
Use double quotation marks to search for two or more words located next to each other. That is, exactly as is, side by side in the same order.
Example 1: "most
virulent and nasty edged"
Example 2: "pass
draconian legislation"
Example 3: "nutty
as a fruit cake"
Note: You cannot use wildcards in phrase searching. If you are unsure of terms, it is better to use the word stems with a wildcard and combine with the AND operator or use the plus symbol +. Read the section on boolean operators for information on how to combine search words.
AND operator
To search for ALL of the words you can either use AND between search terms or the plus sign + before search terms.
For example to search for records that contain the phrase brand image and the word youth anywhere in the record you have two ways to conduct this boolean quick search:
Example 1: "brand
image" AND youth
Example 2: +"brand
image"+youth
These searches could have also been entered into the Advanced search mode by doing an entire record search.
OR operatorThe search engine default is OR. To search for ANY terms there are two methods: either listing the terms without any operator or inserting OR between each term. The two searches below yield the same results.
Example 1:
"underage age" youth young* child*
Example 2: "underage
age" OR youth OR young* OR child*
To exclude terms use the NOT operator. The exclamation symbol ! can also be used for NOT. The search engine will exclude from the results those records containing the terms listed after NOT. The following two examples will yield the same results. The search is looking for all records that contain the word whitby but not the phrase Philip Morris.
Example 1: whitby
NOT "philip morris"
Example 2: whitby
! "philip morris"
You can use the plus + and minus - signs in front of words to force their inclusion and/or exclusion in searches. If you wanted to find records that mention Whist but not Bible:
If you wanted to find industry document records that mention Marlboro but not Philip Morris. Choose industry documents and enter the following:
Use the tilde key (~) to do a proximity search at the end of a phrase. For example to search for the words “minister” and “health” within 2 words of each other the syntax would be: "minister health"~2
Search terms can be ordered or grouped by using parentheses. Parentheses inform the search engine what is more important. By partitioning search terms you can ensure that they are searched for in the correct order or context.
The following search example can be entered into the quick search. The search is looking for records that have ANY of the words for the first part AS WELL AS records that include the word Malaysia.
Example: ("parallel communication" tmd "trademark diversification") AND (malaysia*)
Conduct a quick search to look for a term(s) or word(s) anywhere in a record. The database defaults to looking for ALL documents (meaning both industry documents and non-industry documents). If you want to search for only industry documents click in the drop down box and select industry. If you want to exclude industry documents from the results choose non-industry. Enter your search term(s) and click on search to find records. Review the sections on search terms, wildcards, boolean operators and field searching to learn more about the required syntax. Click here to review fast tips for the quick search mode.
The advanced search provides options for searching an entire record or for searching eight specific fields as well as offering limiting and sorting options.
Search fields offered include: title, author, bates number (document reference number for industry documents), subject, document type, mentioned names, mentioned organisations and tobacco company (to search for documents from a specific tobacco company). To change the default options click on the drop down box.
These searches will typically retrieve less information with more precision.
The search box will accept single terms, phrases as well as search strings containing boolean operators. Review the sections on search terms, wildcards, boolean operators and field searching to learn more about the required syntax.
Searches can be narrowed in the advanced mode by limiting results by date, by countries relevant to the University of Sydney's project or by document rating.
Date limiting:You can search for documents written on a specific day, during a specific month, for a specific year or across several years. You can search for just dates without entering a keyword.
Enter the date range in the format yyyymmdd to yyyymmdd in the From
and To boxes. Use the asterisk wildcard to look for date variations.
If you want to limit your search to documents written from January 1970 to December 1979 enter 197001* in the From box and 197912* in the To box. Click here to view results.
If you want to limit a search to a document written on 21 December 1976 enter 19761221 in both the From and To boxes. Click here to view results.
If you want all documents for 1976, enter 197601* in From box and 197612* in the To box. Click here to view results.
Country limiting: Select either Australia, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore or Thailand from the drop down list. If you choose a country and click on search without entering a search term, all records that have been assigned the selected country will be posted as results. Click here to view results for Australia.
Rating limiting: Select either one star, two stars or just three stars only. If you choose a rating and click on search without entering a search term, all records that have been assigned the selected rating will be posted as results.
Specific fields that can be searched include author, title, bates number (for industry documents), subject, mentioned names, mentioned organisations, document type and tobacco company (for industry documents).
The default in quick search is that all fields are searched. The advanced search mode also offers an entire record search.
Why is field searching important? Field searching can help to narrow down a results list. This is best illustrated with an example. Say you are hunting for information about a policy conference on children. Your research clues to start with are the keywords "child*", "policy" and "conference" and you enter child* AND policy AND conference into either the quick search or advanced search entire record option. This is keyword searching and produces a set of around 65 records. From the results, you determine that a requirement is that those terms are in the title field.
So you can conduct another search using the same keywords but limiting your search to the title field by either conducting a quick search using the syntax title:(child* AND policy AND conference) or by doing an advanced search entering the terms in the title field option. This is field searching and produces a set of around 7 records.
To search for records that contain words specifically in the author field, either conduct an advanced search or use the prefix author: in the quick search mode. Example: To find documents by Cotter Harvey enter author:(+harvey +c)
All pages of every tobacco industry document retrieved during the litigation "discovery process" has been assigned a unique number, usually numerical, however, in some cases it is an alphanumeric sequence. This number is referred to as the Bates number, named after the Bates automatic numbering machine. The Bates number is a document's identifier and usually represents a single string of digits for a one-page document or a range of digits for a multiple page document. The format and length of the Bates number varies from company to company. Click here if you are interested to learn about the different formats for Bates numbers used on the tobacco industry document websites.
As the TDS database is very small and only includes select documents, a Bates number search will probably only be used when you are aware that a specific document has been reviewed by the Sydney Research Team. The TDS will accept Bates numbers in the following formats:
1. A starting bates number, for example: 2047896077
2. An ending bates number, for example: 2047896078
3. The Document ID on the tobacco industry sites, for example: 2047896077/6078.
Some industry sites use different characters to separate the starting
bates number good practice is to either use the asterisk wildcard 2047896077*
or enter the document ID with a space instead of the slash or dash separator
2047896077
6078.
4. The TDS unique document identifier, for example: PM2047896077/6078
5. You can also type a bates number that is within the starting bates
number and ending bates number range. For example: 2015054570,
will find the Philip Morris document 2015054541/4581.
Bates numbers can be searched in the quick search mode or advanced search and can easily be found without limiting to the bates number field. The bates field prefix is bates: if you wish to specifically limit your search to this field.
To search by subject either conduct an advanced search and choose the subject option or conduct a quick search but use the prefix subject:
The subject field is mapped to thesaurus terms. So if you type a term that is not a "preferred" thesaurus term, the search engine will attempt to map it to a subject that is used. For example if the phrase tobacco flavoring is entered the system will automatically bring up the results for the preferred term, cigarette additive.
Click here for a list of subjects and free terms that have been used so far. You may also wish to browse a small set of subjects that have been hyperlinked for easy searching.
The database includes fields to describe the person(s) who received the document, person(s) who were copied the document, person(s) named in the document and person(s) who attended meetings (for documents that are minutes or records of a meeting).
To conduct a Mentioned Names search, click in the appropriate option in Advanced Search type in a term in the format of the surname only eg whitby or surname with initials using the plus signs +whitby +w? and activate the search by clicking on Search.
Alternatively, do a quick search and use the prefix mentionedNames: enclosing your terms in parentheses.
The database includes fields to describe organisation(s) of the person(s) who received the document, the organisation(s) for the person(s) who were copied the document, the organisation(s) for the person(s) named in the document and finally the organisation(s) for the person(s) who attended meetings.
To conduct a Mentioned Organisations search, click in the appropriate option in Advanced Search type in a search term and activate the search by clicking on Search.
Alternatively, do a quick search and use the prefix mentionedOrgs: enclosing your terms in parentheses.
For example: mentionedOrgs:(tia "tobacco institute of australia")
The database includes a field to indicate the type of document. For example: letter, facsimile, advertisement, parliamentary debate.
If you want to search for this field in quick search use the prefix primary_type:
For example: primary_type:(advertisement)
If you wanted to find out all records in the system that are from a specific tobacco organisation or company change the entire record option to Tobacco Company.
When choosing the tobacco company option, phrases or search words to use to call up specific industry document collections include:
"american
tobacco company" for American Tobacco Company documents
"british
american tobacco" for British American Tobacco documents
"brown
& williamson" for Brown & Williamson
"council
for tobacco research" for the Council for Tobacco Research
lorillard
for Lorillard Tobacco Company
"philip
morris" for Philip Morris
reynolds
for RJ Reynolds
"tobacco
institute" for the Tobacco Institute
Documents are rated according to their degree of importance. The document rating system is as follows:
3 stars - Of outstanding importance
2 stars - Of moderate importance
1 star - Of low importance
The ratings may change from time to time. For example, a document initially deemed to be of low importance may be upgraded to a higher rating if further document research reveals its value.
The system commences processing a search request when the "search" button is clicked on. A new window opens up with the results list indicating whether the search has been successful or unsuccessful.
Results are numbered and a brief record is displayed for each search hit. The title field is hyperlinked so if you want more information about a particular record or to read the complete summary click on this field. Use the back button on your browser to go back to the brief results page.
Records that have one document image available display VIEW FILE. If you click on VIEW FILE the image associated with the record will open up in a new window. Records that have more than one image associated with them list the file names as hyperlinks. Clicking on a file name will open up the image in a new Window. Most images are in PDF format and require Adobe Acrobat reader to view them. Multiple page documents will take a significantly longer time to open up.
