There are many ways to search the library. This guide will focus on three different levels of searching for articles:
- Searching at the Discovery level, which searches the majority of our holdings
- Searching at the individual databases level, which just searches one database at a time
- Searching at the journal level, which just searches one academic journal at a time
There are pros and cons to each level of searching. Depending on your topic, you may want to start at the Discovery level and get an overview of what is available, and move down to the database, and academic journal level as you identify gaps in your research.
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Pros |
Cons |
| Discovery |
- Searches everything at once, making sure you don't miss anything from other databases.
- Discovery is often a great place to start, and then you can move down into the databases and academic journals.
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- Pulls back a lot of information, making it more difficult to sift through what you want.
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| Databases |
- More precise discipline-related searching.
- Individual databases often have their own search fields that Discovery does not, such as age group, methodology, etc.
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- It can be time consuming to search through each individual database.
- You might miss resources in a database you weren't aware of. (Ask your librarians for help!)
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| Academic Journals |
- Very precise discipline-related searching.
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- It can be even more time consuming to search though each individual academic journal.
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