November 7, 2012
Search It simplifies research
Search It is an awesome tool that allows you to search for most of the online and print materials owned or subscribed to by K-State Libraries. You can start using it right from the K-State Libraries’ homepage.
The Search It tool improves upon the way you search the resources available to you through the library website. Before, you would have had to search each resource separately in order to maximize the results found. Now with just one search results from the library catalog, the digital collections and the available databases will appear in one window. This streamlines the process of researching across library resources.
Search It not only simplifies the research process, but it is making it easier for you to use. After the initial search, you have the opportunity to narrow your search to different relevant categories listed on the left side of the Web page. The great thing about this is that Search It has already determined the relevant categories that are specific to your search. Another neat aspect to make research more convenient is the e-shelf. When you find an interesting article, you can mark the star to the left of the document title. This adds the article or document to your e-shelf for quick access at a later time.
Wondering when this tool will apply to you? These are the times when Search It will be most beneficial to the research process:
- When you are beginning research on a topic and you are not sure how to begin
- When you only need a few sources for a small assignment or research project
- When you are doing multi- or cross-disciplinary research
- When you are having trouble finding resources in other subject-specific databases
Wanting more specifics about how amazing the Search It tool is? Check out this list of other things you can do with it:
- You can filter your results so that you only see things like peer-reviewed articles and full text online resources.
- You can customize your account to generate results more related to your major or research area and create alerts for newly added materials.
- You can export specific results into citation management software like RefWorks.