Databases: Searching Databases Through Ebsco

EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) provides a single, unified search box for searching the UCN Library's information resources, including scholarly journal articles, books, e-books, internet documents, research reports, and much more.  Features of the service include:

•      Single, simple entry point for searching many databases at once, including the UFV Library catalogue
•      Pre-indexing of a vast quantity of metadata ensures immediate search results
•      Detailed metadata (e.g., author-supplied abstracts,keywords, subjects)
•      Indexing for thousands of journals from publishers such as Sage, Elsevier, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, and Cambridge
•      Complete library catalogue loaded directly into EDS, with real-time availability checks and daily updates
•      Ability to limit searches by date, source type, subject, content provider, full text availability, scholarly designation and more.

Type your research topic into the Search Box on the Library's homepage and press Search.

You may get too many results to evaluate.

You can narrow your results by using Refine your Results area in the left-sided margin. Place checks in "Full Text" and use the slide bar or type in a number in the left Publication Date box. Unless you are looking for historical information, the last ten years should give you the newest information.

Our results have been narrowed to 466,592 hits which is still too many to review. Results can be narrowed by Source Type (type of publication) or by Subject, Language, and Geography. 

Let's narrow our search further to say we want global warming and how it affects Canada. Click on the arrow next to Geography and you would see:

The number in parentheses following each geographic area tells you how many hits or results you would have for that area. By clicking on the box in front of Canada we have narrowed our search from 609,700 to 1, 310. Let's narrow our topic further by using the Subject limiter.

By selecting environmental policy the search results have been narrowed to 54, a list of results that is much easier to handle.

Sometimes search results can be confusing. In the result below, you see where the book is at the Norway House Public Library and there is an interlibrary loan form. If you are not at the site where the item is located, in this case, Norway House, then go ahead and fill out the Interlibrary Loan form and send it in. The interlibrary loan librarian will receive your request immediately and begin to process it.

1. By default, the EDS searches all terms you have entered, without the need to use AND.  For example: children television violence will find items that contain all 3 terms.

2. By default, the EDS searches through the full text of documents (if available).  This may cause a large number of results, and not all are relevant to your subject.  Results are returned in a relevancy ranked order.

3. To improve the relevancy of your search results, enclose phrases in "quotation marks".  For example:  "British Columbia" or "global warming". 

4. Include the apostrophe.  For example, use "handmaid's tale" rather than "handmaids tale"

5. To find variant endings for a word, use the * asterisk (truncation symbol.)  For example:  delinquen* finds delinquent, delinquents, delinquency

6. To find books, e-books. videos or other items in the UFV library, refine your search by selecting "Catalogue only".

7. To find scholarly journal articles, refine your search by selecting "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals".