Presenter Notes
The Knowledge Network – Search Tools
Slide 1
This presentation takes a brief look at some of the search tools available through The Knowledge Network website. The tools are intended to support you in your search for information and we’ll explore different ways to use them and what effect this has on the results you get back.
Slide 2
The Knowledge Network offers various ways to search for needed information.
The main search box displayed on the homepage of the website offers all of the search options available. A cut-down version of this box appears at the top of every other page of the website.
Slide 3
If we take a closer look at the main search box, we can see all of the alternatives available.
Using this box, you can choose to
search every information source attached to The Knowledge Network ;
search for only evidence items
conduct an advanced search
or carry out your search on only library resources.
Slide 4
Trying a fairly easy search, we’d leave the box with its default settings and would search all the information available through The Knowledge Network.
So, we type in our search term ‘chicken pox’ and click the search button.
This search recovers 261 results.
Slide 5
If it’s only evidence information we’re interested in, we’d move the source-selection from Allto Evidence and Guidance by clicking the little button to the left of the words.
Then type in the words chicken pox and click the search button.
This time, the search recovers 14 results.
Side 6
We might want to try an advanced search for information on chicken pox because we’re interested in the effects of the illness on adults.
Click the Advanced search link to open the new search box.
Type in the search term chicken pox and choose the field you’d like to search for information. This could be the title of an article, the subject or keywords recorded for the article, or any of several other options. For this example, we’ll leave the setting at the default – All fields.
Now, choose your Boolean operator. In this case, we want information about the effect of chicken pox in adults. So, our second keyword is adults. We want to see only information that contains both the words chicken pox and adults. So the Boolean operator we need is AND.
Next, we need to enter the second of our keywords. Thinking back to the search hints and tips session, this would be an occasion where we would use a really simple version of ‘truncation’. Rather than typing adultsinto the search box, which would exclude articles using the term adult, we use the singular of the word. This makes sure that all articles containing the words chicken pox and adult or adults, are included in the search results. Just a wee tip, when you use keywords in an information search, it’s usually better to use the singular version than the plural.
So, we’ve now built the search statement chicken pox AND adult. Now, click the search button.
This time the search returns 55 results.
Slide 7
If 55 results are more than you want to see, you can use the filters in the left side of the results screen to choose what seems most relevant to your needs. Looking at three examples : you can choose to see only the single item about diagnosing chicken pox, or only the nine items from EBSCO or only the three items published in 2010.
Slide 8
We coulduse the Advanced search to explore how much information is available through The Knowledge Network on chicken pox.
One way to do this is to search for alternative spellings of chicken pox : in some cases it’s spelt as two words, in others as one. So, as before, we type the term chicken poxin the first search box, leave the search field set to All, select the Boolean operator OR and type the word chickenpox
This pulls back over 4500 results and again, you can use the filters on the results page to choose which of these you’d like to see.
Slide 9
Another way to search is to use the Library. This lets you limit your search from the start by clicking the tab for the type of information you’d like.
You might choose to search for journals. You can do this by typing a word from the journal title into the search box and clicking the search button. Or you can use the Ato Z journal finder by clicking the relevant letter to see journals whose names begin with that letter.
You could search for a particular article. To do this, complete as many of the fields available through the articles tab as you can, and click the search button.
The information you need might be included in a database and you can choose to search only a specific database by clicking the database tab and choosing the one you’d like to use.
If it’s an ebook you’re looking for, you can click the Books tab and type in the title, author, keyword and click the search button.
And finally, if you’re trying to find your local librarian and/or library, you’d use the Support and libraries tab. At this page, type the location, postcode or a keyword relating to the geographical area you’re interested in.
Slide 10
This is the search box that’s shown at the top right of every sub page of The Knowledge Network. It’s a reduced version of the main box on the homepage and lets you keyword searches of All of The Knowledge Network, or the Evidence and Guidance sections or links you to the Advanced Search
Slide 11
This has been an introduction and overview of the search tools available through The Knowledge Network. We hope this has made things a bit clearer and we’re happy to hear from you if you have suggestions on how to improve the session or if you experience any difficulties.
Further help is available through the Help and Training pages of Knowledge Network, from your local librarian or by contacting the knowledge mailbox.
Look for the Knowledge Nuggets for training sessions and other updates from Knowledge Services Group