Passing jQuery Autocomplete search method value to search event

Question

I am making a call to the search method and passing a value

$('myelem').autocomplete('search','test');

Then I have an event handler for the search event

search: function (event,ui){

//I need to access the value 'test' passed from the search method in the search event

}

So far I can not find out how to access the value in the search event handler. The value is available in the source: function (request, response) event handler in the request.term property.

Thanks, Chris