What is Library Search?
Library Search is the main search platform that the Library provides its users. It brings together content from many different databases and publishers in a searchable interface.
The following link provides instructional videos about Library Search.
How do I access Library Search?
Library search is available from the Library Homepage, or you can use the link below:
Can I just use Library Search?
It is absolutely necessary to use Library Search during your research journey. It provides access to different types of resources—including e-books, journal articles, newspapers, theses—as well as directing you to the Library's print collections. But you can search other databases to complement the work that you do in Library Search. Indeed, this is a really good way to conduct a systematic search of the literature.
Advanced Search does not mean complex; it just means control.
Let's image that you want to find information about the relationship between parental mathematics anxiety and the mathematical performance of those parents' children. A search strategy for this topic might look like this:
math* AND (anxiety OR anxious OR fear OR confidence) AND parent* AND child*
Library Search finds me about 1,500 results. The logic of the search, however, means that my concepts could be in different fields. As long as all my concepts appear somewhere (title, abstract, author name, keywords, journal title), Library Search will be happy and show me the results.
This technique is imperative if you want to conduct a systematic search of the literature, but sometimes you may want to scope a topic or find a limited number of results (perhaps you are doing a smaller assessment and only require about 20 results that are exactly what you want).
Advanced Search can be a very effective way of finding out about a topic quickly and efficiently. You can specify exactly where you want Library Search to look. For example, using the Advanced Search to search the Title only can be an effective tool. I now find about 58 very relevant results:
Let's imagine that you want to be more systematic but that you still want some control over where you search. This time, you can search both the Title and the Abstract at the same time. To do this, just reenter the search strategy in another field, select Abstract and use OR to tell Library Search to search both (OR is more, remember!). I now have about 483 relevant results, but they are not 'as specific' as searching the title alone:
The following video introduces you to the basics of constructing a search using AND, OR, and ().
Library Search defaults to showing you the content that the library provides. You can, though, see content that the library doesn't provide. To see this additional content, just click Click here to expand your search at the top of the results:
The good news is that it is still possible to obtain this content with an inter-library loan. All you need to do is select Get it for me from other libraries underneath the content that you would like:
Once you've signed in to Library Search, you'll see the following request button. Click it to receive an electronic copy of the content—in this case a journal article—in 24 hours:
If the content you require is a book—or a book chapter—then you can either request the print book to arrive physically or receive an electronic chapter within 24 hours:
Full terms of the inter-library loan service are here:
Library Search will show you the relationships that exist between peer-reviewed journal articles. Remember that journal articles don't exist in a vacuum. They draw from the work of others and even inspire others to write their own journal articles about related topics.
With this in mind, many journal articles—but not all (see note below)—appear in Library Search accompanied with a single-headed arrow pointing down and often with the addition of a two-headed arrow pointing up. What do these mean?
Single-headed arrow pointing down
If you click the single-headed arrow pointing down, you can see all the journal articles that the author of the current article has used in their work:
Two-headed arrow pointing up
If you click the two-headed arrow pointing up, you can see all the journal articles that have also incorporated the current article (note: if you cannot see a two-headed arrow pointing up, it means that no-one has yet cited this work):
These two arrows are extremely useful ways to help you conduct a review of the relevant literature that exists about your chosen topic. They show you the relationships that exist between different works. Who knows, perhaps you'll see your work there one day, too!
* You don't need to worry too much about this, but Web of Science provides the red arrows for Library Search to use. Some journal articles won't be in Web of Science and so Library Search cannot show you red arrows (remember that Web of Science feeds into Library Search).
