FYS 100 Growing Up with Harry Potter: OneSearch

OneSearch is a great place to start your research and get ideas for your assignment.  It helps you quickly find relevant resources on a subject, without having to decide which database(s) to search.  You can also limit your search results in a variety of ways, including date range, publication type, subject, and geographic location.  The library's cataloged resources, such as books, eBooks, and DVDs and are also integrated into the search results.

1. By default, the OneSearch searches all terms you have entered, without the need to use AND.  For example: harry quidditch broomstick will find items that contain all 3 terms.
    
2. By default, the OneSearch 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:   "deathly hallows" or "death eaters"
    
4. Include the apostrophe.  For example, use "sorcerer's stone" rather than "sorcerers stone"
    
5. To find variant endings for a word, use the * asterisk (truncation symbol.)  For example:  magic* finds magic, magician, magical
    
6. To find books, videos or other items in the Albright library, refine your search by selecting " Catalog (cataLION) Only"
    
7. To find scholarly journal articles, refine your search by selecting "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals"
    
8. You can refine a search by limiting to Language. However, be aware that many English language articles have not been tagged as English, so will be missing from your search results.
    
9. Many items have direct links to retrieve the full text. For those that don't, use "Find Full Text" to determine if Albright Library has the item in print or online.