Literature search services offered by the Conservation Library at the National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) provide a valuable resource for Service employees seeking published scientific information to help them accomplish the agency's conservation mission. 

This resource also supports the agency’s Science Excellence Initiative and was recently improved by the addition of the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts (CSA) MultiSearch Tool, an on-line service that allows all searchable databases to be queried from one Web interface. 

Introductory training for this powerful new literature search tool was recently offered during an on-line Web session co-hosted by NCTC and CSA staff with simultaneous participation by 25 agency scientists from offices across the country, including fishery biologist Mark Steingraeber, La Crosse FRO. 

Trainees learned to perform quick and advanced searches; select databases and date ranges for searching; use Boolean operators and field codes; interpret search results; and save or print search results.  Informed use of this powerful tool will enable these agency science professionals to rapidly search and access complete citations and abstracts for published science articles of interest from the convenience of their office or any other Internet-accessible location. 

Addition of the CSA-MultiSearch Tool to the NCTC Conservation Library Literature Search web page will encourage science excellence in the Service by improving opportunities for agency scientists to access and apply scientific information to conserve fish, wildlife, plants, and their habitats.