ACM Digital Library

ACM Digital Library has two main search options: the default search box on the home page and an advanced search.

Default home page search

This search box also appears in the upper right-hand corner on every page of the ACM Digital Library website. You can use Boolean (AND, OR, NOT) and parentheses to search (see Compiling a search string in our searching guide). It searches all fields in the database record and the full text if available for your terms. 

Advanced search

You can access the advanced search tool by clicking on 'Advanced Search' beneath the default search box on the home page.

• Choose to search either the ACM Full-Text Collection or the ACM Guide to Computing Literature. The ACM Guide to Computing Literature includes the ACM Full-Text Collection but also searches additional items where the full text is not included (see Accessing full text for more details).
• Choose the field you want to search from the drop down menu, (e.g. Anywhere, Title, Author). Learn more about ACM Digital Library search fields in the box on the right-hand side of this page. 
• To add additional rows to your search, click on the plus icon at the end of the first search row. Click the minus icon to remove search rows. 
• You can use Boolean AND, OR and NOT to connect your search terms (see Search Techniques in our searching guide); boolean operators must be capitalised.
• Each row added will be automatically connected in your search using AND.

The search tips on the ACM Digital Library Advanced Search page note that:

• An AND relationship is automatically assumed across multiple rows
• An OR relationship is automatically assumed across multiple terms in each row

It is recommended that you manually connect multiple terms on a row using OR to ensure accuracy, as relying on this assumed relationship can impact the number and relevance of your results.

For more information on building your search, see:

Anywhere searches anywhere in the item record, including the full text if it is available.

Title searches the title of the journal article, conference paper, or poster.

Publication Title will look for the name of the journal or conference proceeding in which an article or paper is published. 

Abstract searches for keywords in the abstract only. It is possible to search in both the Title or the Abstract (or other combination of search fields) at the same time if you edit the search syntax. 

Full Text searches for keywords in the full text only. Please note that searching in this field may increase the number of irrelevant results returned.

Author searches for contributing authors, whereas the Name field searches any personal names associated with the article. 

The Author Keyword field searches the keywords selected by the author to categorise the article. 

The Author Affiliation field searches by the institution and/or professional body an author is associated with. 

The Conference Location field searches by the event location, and the Conference Sponsor field searches by the institution and/or professional organisation which funded the event. 

ISBN / ISSN refers to the unique number assigned to a book (ISBN) or journal (ISSN)

You can also search by DOI (Digital Object Identifier), which is the permanent, stable link assigned online resources such as journal articles and conference papers.