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Introducing Multi-Search Discovery Service
Multi- Search is a new library discovery tool that enables you to search and find materials in the library catalog and many of the databases at the same time. Smart Search is powered by EBSCO Discovery Service. There are 4 steps in a successful search:
1. Enter Your Search
On the Basic Search Screen, enter your search terms in the search box.
If you want to search for a phrase, enclose your words in "quotation marks". You can restrict your results to a Title search or an Author search using the radio buttons below the search box.
2. Click on Search.
A window will open with your initial set of results.
3. Refine Search
If you want to use any of the optional Limiters or Expanders, click the Refine Search link to open a window of choices, including full text and scholarly journals.
4. Limit Your Results
Multi-Search can find results in over 72 different databases as well as the library catalog and our Journal Finder A to Z list so the number of results it finds can be very large. You can limit your results by using the options on the left.
Some Useful Ways to Limit and Refine Your Search:
You can click on a single option to limit your search to just the records matching that term, or you can apply several by clicking in their checkboxes and then clicking Update. Any limits you apply will be shown in the 'bread bin' area (up near the search box) at the top of the left column with a cross next to each one so that it is easy to remove the limit again.
5. View Full Records and Full Text Documents
Multi-Search displays brief records initially. These will often provide you with enough information to decide whether you want to see more. If an item is available in full text in one of the EBSCO databases, you will see an HTML or PDF full text link, along with thumbnails of images in the article. Many of the HTML full text results will include tools to listen to the text (using automated speech-to-text) or to translate it (using machine translation).
6. Explore More Results from Additional Sources
Once you have exhausted the main results set, you can use the Integrated Search panel on the right to find results in additional sources external to the EBSCO platform.
You can place the mouse over the name of each additional database to see how many hits it contains, or do the same over the Details link just below the Integrated Search heading to see a summary of the number of hits found in each database.
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