Garland Library Online Orientation

Introduction  This portion of the Online orientation is intended to help library users gain the basic knowledge and skills needed in order to effectively search one of Tusculum’s electronic databases.  Information provided in this portion of the orientation will cover basic searching of the ProQuest Central database.  Keep in mind that this tutorial is composed of screen shots, and any alerts or related information may not be current. Check the library’s website for current information.

Accessing the Database Begin by left clicking the Journals & Databases link on the library’s homepage

Choose a Location If you are on campus, you will choose the On Campus link. Choose the off campus link if you are searching from a location that is off campus. Off campus searches may require a user name and password, which are available from library staff

Two Ways to Access Now we see three ways to access the library’s databases. First are the buttons for the comprehensive databases (ProQuest, InfoTrac I and EBSCOhost).Second is to look up a specific database using the A-Z listing. Third is by subject. For this tutorial, we are accessing the ProQuest Central database. Click on the ProQuest Central button to access the database. What is a comprehensive database? These are databases that contain a number of smaller databases on various subjects. Using a comprehensive database, you can search multiple databases simultaneously.

Searching the Database Using the main search bar at the top searches all of the databases in ProQuest Central. If you scroll down, you can either choose to search databases pertaining to a specific subject or a specific databases. For example, you can search all Business databases by clicking the ‘Search’ link next to ‘Businness.’ Or you can select a specific database, such as ABI/INFORM Complete, by clicking on the name of the database. For now, let’s use the main search bar to search all databases. This is a good method to start a search, especially if your topic crosses disciplines (such as Education and Psychology).

Keyword Search Now we enter our search terms in the box at the top of the page. For this demonstration, a search will be performed using the terms “Personal Finance.” Note that ProQuest has an auto-complete feature to help you with spelling and suggest other search terms. This can be helpful when you need alternate terms or to help you focus your keywords.

Looking at Results Notice in the sidebar the headings that correspond to different types of material (Source Type). Here is where you will need to make a decision regarding the types of materials that will meet your needs. Note that the e-books tab does NOT link to Tusculum library’s catalog, meaning that Tusculum may or may not have these books in the collection. If you want to find out if Tusculum owns a particular book, simply check the Tusculum online catalog for that particular title. If Tusculum does not own a copy, it is possible it can be requested for you via interlibrary loan.

Narrowing Your Search Select Scholarly Journals as the source type. Remember that Journals are often considered to be more reliable than magazines—especially when those Journals are peer reviewed. For the purposes of this orientation, we will look specifically at results from scholarly journals. It is now possible to further limit results. First, we will limit results to full text articles, as abstracts will not be very useful for class assignments. Note that limiting to full text articles removes some of the previous results. Click the check box under the search bar to limit results to full-text.

Limiting Results Now, let’s limit to peer-reviewed results. Click the check box to limit results to peer-reviewed, then click the search icon on the far right of the search bar Notice this reduces the number of results even further, leaving only the full text, more scholarly results. Once you have limited and retrieved your search results, simply select an article and click on its title.

Viewing Articles Some articles will give you the option to view in PDF format. The advantage to this is that you will get an electronic version of the article as it appeared in print—complete with pictures, illustrations, tables, page numbers, and so on. If you choose to print the PDF version of the article, be sure to use the Print icon in the PDF browser as the ‘File – Print’ procedure will not print a PDF.

Text Only If you do not want or need the article in this format, you can simply print the text of the article by left clicking on print. You will also have the option to print citation information with the article and your recent searches. This can be helpful when going back to search a topic, as you will have a record of what you have already looked for.

Also, you could choose to the article to yourself. Notice you are given the option to include the PDF version of the article, if available. You can also include your recent searches and citation information.

Download Finally, you can simply save the article to your computer or a flash drive. Click the ‘Save’ icon in the PDF browser to save a PDF version of the document. You can also save a text only version by clicking ‘Export/Save’ and selecting ‘Text only.’

Boolean Search In some cases, a Boolean search may be desirable. In order to perform a simple Boolean search, use connectors such as ‘and.’ For instance, we may want to search for personal finance and credit, in which case the ‘and’ acts as a Boolean modifier that links the terms together. This can also help narrow your search. Try adding more keywords with Boolean Operators or changing keywords if you are not finding the information you need.

Conclusion  This concludes the research databases portion of the online orientation.  Please continue your orientation by completing the other modules provided.  You can practice the skills covered in this section by going to the library’s homepage at and performing a few searches on your own.