There may be occasions when you require information from a certain time span. For example you need everything published before 1995 on the topic of gun control or you may want everything published since 1997 on guns in schools. There are several ways in which you can identify a specific time. For example: The "less than" symbol retrieves information published before the designated year. By typing <1995 you would get information published prior to 1995. If there were a line under the “less than” symbol (for the “less than or equal to” symbol), you would get information for that year and any prior years.[
The "greater than" symbol retrieves information published after the designated year. By typing >1995 you would get information published after 1995. Again, if there is a line under the "greater than" symbol, it means "greater than or equal to," and will return information published in 1995 and forward.
To get information from specified years type: "1995, 1997-1999." Information received will have been published in 1995 and between the years of 1997 and 1999.
An example of a search statement defining a date is "gun control" AND py=1997 (py is the abbreviation for the publication year field.) This search would return information on gun control, published only in the year 1997