HIST B1 : World History: Using OneSearch

If you want to specifically look for books/eBooks, you can limit your search by clicking "BC Library Books & eBooks" in your search when you use the "search anything" bar.

The number of search results you get can be overwhelming!  For instance, even if you already clicked on the bubble for 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 collection(s) 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.

Types of Advanced Searches:

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

Any field”—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; 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 to find books or articles on a particular topic or subject; 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; 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 the "Ask Us!" button at the top of each library webpage.  

"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.