Administrative Record Advanced Search Help

The Administrative Record Online Search tool queries a database containing over 2000 documents related to the CERCLA activities at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The sections below provide tips on how to use the advanced search tools to retrieve these documents.

Sometimes there will be many documents related to your search criteria. Please be aware that if a search takes too long to run, your computer may time-out. If this happens, try to limit your search by using a more specific keyword or choosing one type of record from the pull-down menu under “Record Type.” Please note that in the following sections, the example search words will appear in quotation marks. This is for illustrative purposes only. Quotation marks should not be entered as part of your search criteria.

Search Criteria

Subject and Keyword(s)

Subject searches look for words in the title of the document. You may enter in a specific document title or part of the title, such as “feasibility study” or “community relations plan” in order to find those particular documents (see Screenshot #1). Keyword searches bring up documents relating to a general subject area. For example, you may enter “groundwater” in the Keyword search to see which documents in the database relate to groundwater. Please note that it is often easier to find documents if you use general keywords and then proceed to more specific keywords. If you choose keywords that are too specific, you may not find any related documents.

Subject and Keyword searches are case-insensitive, so “Plan”, “PLAN”, and “plan” are treated the same.

Screenshot 1. Subject Search

Record Number

Each document in the Administrative Record is assigned a specific record number. If you know the record number of the document you are looking for, you may select “Record Number” as your search type and enter the record number into the search box (see Screenshot #2). For example, selecting “Record Number” and entering “2105” into the search box will return the document titled “Proposed plan to select a remedy to clean up soil.” 

Screenshot 2. Record Number Search

Author

Most of the documents in the Administrative Record are associated with an author. Authors include the regulatory agencies, JPL, the remedial project managers, analytical laboratories, and the consulting firms hired to assist with CERCLA activities. If you know the author of the document you are looking for, you may select “Author” as your search type and enter the author’s name into the search box (see Screenshot #3). For a list of common authors in the Administrative Record (see Screenshot #4), click here.

Screenshot 3. Author or Author Affiliation Search

Screenshot 4.  List of Authors

Record Type

All of the documents in the Administrative Record are associated with a type of record, such as report, memo, plan, etc. The default search value is “All Types,” which will return all types of documents associated with your search terms. If you are only interested in one type of record, you may choose that specific record type from the pull-down menu (see Screenshot #5). The “Miscellaneous” category is used to classify documents not easily separated into the other categories, such as newspaper articles and fact sheets.

Screenshot 5. Record Type Search