Subject Guide: English: Using OneSearch

You will find the link Find books and more with OneSearch in the Research section of the library webpage in the Search for Sources subsection.  OneSearch allows you to search EVERYTHING the library has access to, including print books and eBooks, plus open access materials, journal articles and more from our databases. 

When you click on the OneSearch link, it will take you to a Search Anything search bar.  This will allow you to search everything at once to find everything we have related to your search term for a topic, author, or title. See the boxes below to find out more about the other features available through OneSearch, such as Refining Results, Advanced Search, and Find Journals.

When you use the "search anything" bar, if you want to specifically look for books or eBooks, you can limit your search by clicking BC Library Books & eBooks in the search suggestions that pop up below the search box.

The number of search results you get can be overwhelming!  For instance, even if you already selected BC Library Books & eBooks, the results include all the relevant eBooks we have in our EBSCO eBook Academic  Collection, which has over 170,000 books!   Luckily, you can narrow down or refine your results with the options in the left-hand margin under "Refine my results".  For example, if you only want print books, click on "Held by library", and if you only want eBooks, click on "Available online".  Be sure to note that some of the online results may also be journal articles or conference papers, so look at the label for each result.  

If you want more control over your search, such as selecting which source type to search, using more than one search term, or searching the Course Reserves, you can click the Advanced Search link to the right of the Search Anything search bar.

NOTE: Select which collection you want to search with the bubbles under "Search for."  For example, if you want to only search books & eBooks, be sure to select that bubble before searching

Types of Advanced Searches:

Any field—used most often; searches entire entry for each type of source, including description, title, author, and subject; use when want to search by keywords instead of subject headings; think of the main concept for which you need information and narrow it down to just one or two key words, and any related synonyms; use when searching for poems, plays, short stories (use quotation marks around title); use when not getting any results with the other types of searches

Title--use when you know the name of the book or article; don’t type articles (the, a, an) at the beginning of a title

Author/Creator--use when you want to find books or articles by a certain author; always search by last name, first name

Subject--use when you know what subject the books or articles were tagged with as being about; a subject search is searching for subject headings given based on the Library of Congress Classification System.  If you get stuck, don't get frustrated! You can get help from a BC reference librarian at the reference desk, or by clicking on Chat at the top of the library homepage.  It is typically easier to use Any field, so you could just go back to that type of search.

ISBN--use when know this number for the book

ISSN--use when know this number for the journal

There are two search boxes in Advanced Search, allowing you to search more than one way at the same time, such as more than one subject at a time, the title and its author, or more than one word in the title.  These search boxes are connected by the Boolean term AND, which tells the computer to bring back results that have both search terms.  The AND can be changed to OR or NOT in the drop-down selection menu.  OR tells the computer that you are ok with results containing either search term.  NOT is used to exclude in the search results the second search term from the first search term.  

If you want to see what journals we have access to for a particular subject area, or need to evaluate a journal, you can click on the Find Journals button above the Search Anything search bar.