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SEARCHING BIRDnnnn

From Duane Carmony (birder@purdue.edu) W. Lafayette IN
(Slightly altered for Barbolink's Page)

You can search back to 94/01/01.
Suppose you would like to learn about Birding in Eucuador.
The following should be sent to listserv@listserv.arizona.edu
as a message without subject:
SEARCH BIRDCHAT ECUADOR [also search BIRTRIP - a newer list]
Only the first 100 are shown so you won't get the most recent.
If you search for bird you get birds, birding, birder birdchat, catbird, etc.
[about 24 000 hits!]

SEARCH BIRDCHAT ECUADOR SINCE 96/01/01 for the most recent hits.

The message you get starts out with what looks like an index file.
Each line has an item # mmmmm, date, and subject.
This is followed by instructions for getting the actual messages.
If you just want one or two, you can order them by index #
from listserv (Listserv@listserv.arizona.edu)
by sending the message GETPOST BIRDCHAT 12345 12346
(this will return the two messages concatinated).
Send as separate lines to get indivual mail messages
GETPOST BIRDCHAT 12345 GETPOST BIRDCHAT 12346

The file sent to you also contains about three lines of the message.
This is enough of the message to eliminate a lot of the messages.

The following also works as expected
SEARCH BIRDCHAT ECUADOR AND PERU
(the words do not have to be adjacent)

Apparently, SEARCH BIRDCHAT A B and C
is interpreted as (A or B) and C.
Thus SEARCH BIRDCHAT COSTA RICA AND WARBLER
would find a report from from Costa Rica about warblers,
or costa brava about warblers
or even one about RICAroni being eating by warblers!

SEARCH BIRDCHAT COSTA AND RICA
does not look for the string either (the words need not be adjacent).
An article on FredRICA in COSTA BRAVA would be found

This technique works with all the following BIRDnnnn lists:
BIRDBAND, BIRDCHAT, BIRDCNTR, BIRDEAST,
BIRDRBA, BIRDTRIP, BIRDWEST

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