Using the Discovery Service

What is Discovery?

The Discovery Service is a search engine to help you find articles, books and other academic material. It is designed by a company called EBSCO, to provide access to the library's information resources through a single search

How does it work? 

The Discovery Service searches many (but not all) of the library’s databases and other resources in one go. Finding items from the library catalogue, the institutional repository and over 100 databases, it presents you with one result list of journal articles, conference papers, books, e-books and more.

Databases are still available to search individually, whether or not they are in Discovery – find the links via a database search of the Library Catalogue or the subject pages on the Library website.

How do I access it?

The very first time you access EBSCO you need to accept the personalization option. This will then automatically log you in with your University account.

Each time you use the Discovery service you will be prompted to login via your University username and password. This allows you to save items into your dashboard. You can check you are signed in by clicking MyEBSCO in the top right corner and looking for your name

You will now be able to store articles, create alerts, and save searches. You will also be able to create Projects. Projects enable you to collect and organize the items you find in Discovery. For example, if you are working on multiple essays, you could create a Project for each one to store articles on your different topics. In addition, you could assign each Project a Due Date to help prioritize your work. 

What about finding books?

To find a specific book, type the main words from the title and the author’s name into the search box. The shelfmark (location on the library shelves) and the availability of the book will be displayed underneath the information about the book.

To find books on a subject, type your keywords into the search box and refine your results by clicking on the 'Source Type' filter at the top of your search results and selecting ‘Books’ and ‘eBooks’.

Looking for information on a topic?

When you use the basic or advanced search, the 'Full Text Online Only and Print' filter will be ticked by default. This means your search will only retrieve results you can fully access online (the ‘Full Text Online Only’ option) or which are held physically in the library (the ‘Catalogue Only’ option).

The 'Full Text Online' option includes material which will be available through a library subscription or freely available online, and could be an article from a journal, an entry in a reference book or an e-book. The link under each item will lead you through to the full text.

If you want to extend your search to include all material indexed by the Discovery Service, you can un-tick the ‘Full Text Online Only and Print’ option either on the advanced search page or, once you have your results, you can go to 'all filters' and untick that option. You may be able to obtain items not fully accessible online or held by the Library using our Interlibrary Loans service.

What are "Research Tools"?

On the left hand side of the Discovery screen you will see a section called Research Tools. Here you will find additional tools to help you with your research. 

Publications 

If you want to find and view our holdings for a specific journal you can use the Publications finder. Just search for the name of the journal you wish to view. 

You can also browse journals alphabetically or by subject. 

Concept Map 

The Concept Map provides a more visual and interactive approach to exploring topics. It allows you to interactively and visually explore related concepts and is a helpful way to widen your research and to find relevant keywords to add to your search strategy. 

Additional Resources 

The Additional Resources section provides links to relevant databases that aren't included in the Discovery Service. Remember, it is also important to explore your subject pages for other resources that your librarian has identified as being particularly relevant to your subject area. 

 All Library databases can be accessed directly via the Library web pages.

How can I make my search results more relevant ?

The best ways to reduce your search results and make them more relevant is to think carefully about the keywords you are using and then to apply filters to your search results. Explore our Information Literacy pages for help improving your search techniques including choosing effective keywords. Within Discovery you can apply filters and the most popular such as source type, date range and peer-reviewed articles will appear at the top of your search results, just click them to apply them to your search. There are more filters such as language, geography, subject and content provider available under the 'all filters' option. 

Where can I get more help?

Just ask at the library help desks, contact us by email, phone or through our chat service

How do I find law resources?

Law is one topic that is better served by databases other than Discovery, the best being Lexis and Westlaw. Check the Law & Criminology subject pages for more information.

Where else can I search?

Though Discovery includes a great range of resources, there are a number of specialist databases whose content is not in Discovery.

Check our subject pages for recommendations on where to search for resources in your subject area. 

Where can I get more help?

Just ask at the library help desks, contact us by email, phone or through our chat service