The Land Portal's Land Library is a free online repository with over 20,000 land-related resources. All the resources are highly curated, making the items much easier to find, for both novice and advanced searchers.

In this Search Guide, you can find options on how to search for a particular resource that you are trying to find.

If you notice a bug or have any suggestions on how we can improve the Land Library or this Search Guide, please do not hesitate to contact the Library team through landlibrary@landportal.info.

1. Simple search through keywords

You can enter any keywords, such as topics or countries, in the simple search bar to find information relevant to your search. The search engine will retrieve the first records that contain all of the keywords, and subsequently, the records that contain some of the keywords entered. The search engine will search for the keywords in the all the metadata fields of the records (title, description, etc.).

When entering terms in the search bar, please remember the following elements:

• The search engine is not case sensitive
• The search engine will accept the following "boolean" operators: AND, OR & NOT. For example:
  • Indonesia and customary law;
  • Indonesia not customary law;
  • Indonesia or Malaysia and customary law.
• The search engine will search for exact wording if you put the keywords like this: "customary tenure".

2. Advanced search for Geographical focus

Through the advanced search drop down menu, you can refine your search by the geographical focus of the resource. If you are looking for a resource that focuses on a particular country or region, you can select it through a dropdown menu or start typing the country or region and have the field auto-complete the word you are typing. The selection of the countries or regions through this form is a closed list - meaning that the term needs to exist in the Land Portal's country list. The Land Portal follows the UN list of areas and regions.

3. Advanced search for Resource Type

Through the advanced search drop down menu, you can refine your search by the type of resource. If you are looking for a particular type of resource, you can select it through a dropdown menu or start typing the keyword and have the field auto-complete the word you are typing. The selection of resource types through this field is from a closed list - meaning that the terms need to exist in the Land Portal's resource type list. Access this page to find out more about the types of resources used on the Land Portal.

4. Advanced search for Data Provider

A Land Library Data Provider is a website or library that the Land Portal aggregates metadata from on a large scale. The Land Portal uses importers, a technical module, to extract the metadata of sometimes thousands of resources. The list of organizations that are listed in this dropdown menu allows you to search for one or more of these particular data providers.

5. Advanced search for Related Topics

A more effective way to search by topical keywords is through the related topics field in the advanced search filter. This filter selects topical keywords from a controlled list, LandVoc. Using a controlled list is more efficient because then there is no chance of missing a resource that mentions the synonym or a translated word of the keyword you have typed in. The full list of land-related concepts that are included in LandVoc can be found on this page.