LibrarySearch Tips

Once you are in the results page of your search, there will be several filter options on the left-hand side of your results page. If you need peer-reviewed articles, you can select the "Peer Reviewed Journals" option and you will only see peer-reviewed articles in your results. If you need resources published in the last 5 years, refine your date range. Explore the different filters to see how they change your results.

 

"I want the book, not the book review!" 

If you are seeing too much of one type of source, you can also exclude things from your search by selecting the exclude item box icon to the right of the term:

Advanced Search: Using AND, OR, and NOT

Connecting one term to another, such as "lobster industry" AND "Maine" means that instead of searching for anything on the lobster industry, or anything that mentions Maine, you're only searching sources that discuss both of these topics.

Using "OR" broadens your search. This is often helpful when you're researching a topic that has different terms with similar meanings. 

In the example below, the advanced search in LibrarySearch has been selected and the search is for "lobster populations AND climate change" OR "lobster populations AND global warming OR "lobster populations AND ocean temperatures." So this search will look for any sources that discuss lobster populations and use the terms climate change, global warming, or ocean temperatures. 

 

Using NOT to Get Specific

NOT allows you to differentiate terms when doing a search. For example, if were researching the history of Belfast, Maine but your results kept showing sources on Belfast, Ireland, you could search "Belfast Maine" NOT "Ireland" to help narrow your results.