MetaSearch Help

MetaSearch

To access, click MetaSearch in the menu.

The term metasearch, also known as federated searching or cross-database searching, means to submit a query to numerous databases at once. The query is broadcast to each database, and a combined result list is displayed according to the results' relevancy rank. In addition, you can choose a specific database and see the results from that database.

MetaSearch provides complete control over which databases are searched and offers a variety of options for viewing the results in these databases.

1. Define the list of databases you will use for your search in the Identify database dropdown menu.
2. A list of databases is now shown. Select the databases to be searched.
3. Enter a term in Enter search term . You can also use the Advanced Search .
4. Click to start the search in the specified databases.
   While SuperSearch is searching, its progress is shown in a table listing the databases in which it is searching. This list shows the status of the search in each database and the number of hits found in each. You can click Cancel to stop the search and start again.
5. Once SuperSearch has finished searching, it displays the combined results. You can browse through this results list, or choose to see a list per database, as described in MetaSearch Results .
6. You can now click the Search function in the menu to do another search, refine your query or review the results of Previous Searches .

MetaSearch Identify Database

MetaSearch provides complete control over which databases are searched and offers a variety of options for viewing the results in these databases.

You can select the databases to be searched in the Identify database dropdown menu. The options are:

Resource Sets : Displays a list of Resource Sets for your selection. A Resource Set is a list of databases prepared by the Library.

My Databases : Displays your personalized database lists (for authenticated users only) that you created in My Databases . Your database clipboard appears on the list as well.

Subjects : Displays a drop down menu from which you can select a subjects and sub-categories of databases.

Locate : Enables you to enter information describing the databases you want to search, as described below. You can fill in any or all of these fields.

• Enter one or more words that appear in the title of the database in the Title field. You can use a question mark as a wild card (meaning type "master?" to locate MasterFILE Elite (EBSCO), MasterFILE Premier (EBSCO), and MasterFILE Select (EBSCO)).
• Enter the name of the vendor in the Database Vendor field. Here, too, you can use the question mark as a wild card.
• Select a subject from the drop down list.
• Enter any word that may appear in the database title or any descriptive information in the Any Word field. Here, too, you can use the question mark as a wild card.
• Institutions assign types to databases, such as index, library catalog, or encyclopedia. Select the type of the database in the Type field.
• Click , to start the search for databases according to the criteria that you entered.

New Databases : Enables you to see the latest databases made available to you by the institution. These databases also appear in the database lists when you select any of the options mentioned above.

Advanced Search

The Advanced Search provides more options for specifying the information for which you are searching.

1. To access the Advanced Search, click the Advanced tab.
2. Two fields are provided for you to specify the information that you seek in more detail. Select a field type by clicking the on the right of the field.
3. Enter a term in one or both fields.
4. If you filled in both fields, specify the relationship between the two fields:
• Select And to specify that the system should search for records containing the term in the top row and the term in the bottom row.
• Select Or to specify that the system should search for records containing either the term in the top row or the term in the bottom row.
• Select Without to specify that the system should search for records containing the term in the top row and not containing the term in the bottom row.
5. Click to start the search.
   While SuperSearch is searching, its progress is shown in a table listing the databases in which it is searching. This list shows the status of the search in each database and the number of hits found in each. You can click the Cancel option to stop the search and start again.
6. Once SuperSearch has finished searching, it displays the results list. You can then browse through this result list, or click Search in the menu to do another search.

MetaSearch Results

MetaSearch Results enable you to view the combined results from all the selected databases. This is the default display. You can also view the results of a specific database by clicking results in other databases and selecting the database's name in the displayed list of databases. To then go back to the combined results, click combined results .

MetaSearch Results can be displayed in three views: Table View , Brief View and Full View . You can toggle between the different views.

Note: If you have authenticated yourself, you can set your preferred view as part of your preferences .

At the top of the results, you can see the text for which you searched.

The combined result list includes the first results fetched from the databases that were searched. The results are displayed in the order of their relevance to the term you entered. You can sort the combined results by selecting an option in the Sort by field. Sort options include rank, title, author, year, and database name.

Sorting is not always available when you view a result list for a specific database. In this case, sorting is enabled when the database itself supports it, and then you can sort the results by author, title, and year.

Note that some databases have been configured so that the results are displayed in their native interface. In this case, you need to click view results . The results are then displayed in a new window.

You can narrow or broaden the results of the query using Refine Search in the menu.

You can view a list of the previous searches that you performed during this session in order to review them or to save them in Saved Searches from which they can be run again.

Note: Searches performed on Resource Sets only display combined results and have less functionality.

See also: MetaSearch - Browsing Through the Results

MetaSearch - Browsing Through the Results

Various options are provided to browse through the results, as follows:

• Click Next or Previous to display another page. You can set the number of results displayed per page as part of your preferences .
• Enter a number in the Jump to # field and click to jump to a record according to its location in the results.
• Click Get More to add more results to the list that is currently displayed on the screen. The list is resorted according to the relevance of the results taking the new ones into account. Results that are added to the list are displayed in bold to indicate which ones you haven't seen yet.

MetaSearch Table View

Table View displays the records in a table, one row for each record. Table View provides the following options:

• Click the Title or the record sequential number to see the record's Full View .
• Click the database name to go to the database's Web site. When possible, the same record is displayed in the database's native interface.
• Click to save a record in your basket. Your basket is a temporary storage for records that you find interesting. You can later move records from the basket to another My Marked Records (eShelf) folder, save records to disk (in various formats) or email them. Once you added the record to the basket, the icon changes to .
• Click , to use SOURCE IT which provides access to a range of relevant electronic resources, such as the full text of articles or holdings information in your library's OPAC.

MetaSearch Brief View

Brief View provides citation information, in addition to the information provided in the Table View . Brief View provides the following options:

• Click a Title to see the Full View of the record.
• Click the database name to go to the database's Web site. When possible, the same record is displayed in the database's native interface.
• Click to save a record in your basket. Your basket is a temporary storage for records that you find interesting. You can later move records from the basket to another My Marked Records (eShelf) folder, save records to disk (in various formats) or email them. Once you added the record to the basket, the icon changes to .
• Click , to use SOURCE IT (SFX) which provides access to a range of relevant electronic resources, such as the full text of articles or holdings information in your library's OPAC.

MetaSearch Full View

Full View provides all the record's information. It shows a page for each record and highlights the words you queried.

• Click , to use SOURCE IT (SFX) which provides access to a range of relevant electronic resources, such as the full text of articles or holdings information in your library's OPAC.
• Click to save a record in your basket. Your basket is a temporary storage for records that you find interesting. You can later move records from the basket to another My Marked Records folder. Once you added the record to the basket, the icon changes to .
• Click , to save the record to a file on your PC. A record format window is displayed from which you can select the format of the file to be saved. The options are as follows:
  • Standard: Saves the file as a standard text file in a format similar to that displayed on the screen.
  • MARC1 format: Saves the file with MARC21 cataloging tags.
  • Citation manager: Saves the file in the format of the ISI Citation Manager that is installed on your computer: EndNote, ProCite or ReferenceManager.

• Click , to email the record.
  Click , to see the full text without going through the SOURCE IT (SFX) menu. This option only appears when the article's full text is available .

Refine Search

To access, click MetaSearch in the menu and then Refine Search .

You can refine your search results by combining them with another search term. To narrow your search, select And or Without ; to broaden your search select Or . Then specify the new search term: select the field type and enter the term.

• Click Go

Previous Searches

To access, click MetaSearch in the menu and then Previous Searches .

This option is available from MetaSearch. It displays a list of the previous searches that you performed during this session. This list is erased when you log out or the session ends. To store queries for future use, add them to your My Marked Records .

You can do any of the following:

• Click a Query to redisplay the results of this query.
• Click Databases to see the list of databases that were searched.
• Click to store this query in your My Marked Records so that you can run it again in the future, manually, or define it as an Alert . Previous Searches are not saved when a session ends.
• Click to erase all the previous searches in this session.