The easiest way to begin searching for research materials at IU East is to start typing in the blank labelled “Search EBSCO (Articles)” on the library’s home page. This search blank is a meta-search, which means that it looks through many of the library’s databases simultaneously. Most research at IU East starts here.
The software behind this is called the EBSCO Discovery Service, and it is getting a facelift. The search interface will change, and some of the features and buttons are moving around. Some new features are being added. The clean-looking search blank continues to put some of the most popular filters right there with it (for example, restricting just to things that have full text immediately available, or which are from peer-reviewed journals). Type in what you want to search for, click on any of those limits that you want, and then click the icon of the magnifying glass to search.
After searching, your results will be in the center of the screen. The most common filters remain with the search blank (the limiters were all on the left side of the screen in the old version). Clicking the ‘all filters’ button will reveal them all in a panel on the right side of the screen. Some of these have been updated – for example, the date range limit used to be a small sliding scale that you picked the years on. Now there are radio buttons for the latest year, latest five years, ten years, and the option for a custom date range. If you’d like to add more filters to your search (full text, peer review, type of document, language, date of publication, etc.) you can do so at any time. The results in the center will have ‘access now’ or ‘access options’ buttons, depending on where or if the content is immediately available. Or, click on the article title or ‘view details’ button to learn more about it. If we don’t have the resource, the link labelled ‘find it’ will take you to options for getting it through interlibrary loan.
Ten results are shown per page (it used to be thirty), and they are ranked by relevance. EBSCO has improved its relevancy ranking, with no bias towards any providers, whether their own or that of another database. As before, the EBSCO Discovery Service does not track or remember what you have searched for in the past. This distinguishes it from popular search engines like Google or Bing, which do pollute search results with content that mirrors information you have previously searched for or clicked on. The EBSCO Discovery Service also does not create a profile of you, unless you choose to create an account with them. When you log in using your IU username and passphrase, all EBSCO knows is that the search is coming from an authorized IU East user, not you personally. So how does it rank the relevance of search results? Mostly, it is just based on the words you’ve typed. Other criteria beyond that include the recentness of the article, the document type, and the length of document.
The EBSCO Discovery Service has made other substantial changes to how the platform works. For example, one feature of the old system was that you had to generate stable URLs (web addresses) to return to the same search or article record. Just copying and pasting what was in your browser’s address bar wouldn’t work. Now, it will. You will no longer have to take an extra step to link to an article, and can share it with any other IU East user by just copying the URL that you see at the top of the screen. The platform also improves the display of PDF and eBook content, crucially making the e-reader accessible within Canvas, so library content or required readings can more effectively be integrated.
This is not the end of developments; EBSCO has other features planned, particularly for those who create an EBSCO account. Future features include personalized journal alerts, online speech-to-text functionality, and aesthetic improvements like adding an image carousel for multimedia and eBooks.
Any questions about the new EBSCO Discovery Service? Ask Us at iueref@iue.edu or click this button:
