Besides using the library's databases and open web resources to search for articles, you can also use the library's QuickSearch discovery tool.
The QuickSearch allows you to simultaneously search across most of the SHU Library's resources and cast a much wider net. This tool can be particularly helpful in situations like:
Watch the video below to learn how to use the QuickSearch to find articles.
In this short video, you will learn how to quickly find articles, including peer reviewed articles, in QuickSearch.
In this short video, you will learn how to quickly find articles in QuickSearch.
QuickSearch is a powerful tool that allows you to search most of Sacred Heart University Library’s resources from one single search box. It provides seamless access to the SHU Library catalog, Digital Commons @SHU, and most of our article databases, including Academic Search Premier, CINAHL Complete, and Business Source Premier. For a full list of the resources being searched, click on the “What am I searching?” link in the QuickSearch box on the library homepage.
To begin, simply type your search terms into the QuickSearch box on the library’s homepage and click Search.
This will bring you to the results page. It is important to remember that QuickSearch will retrieve results in a wide variety of formats, including journal articles, books, DVDs, streaming videos, and more.
If you are just looking for journal articles, you can use the options along the left-side of the page to narrow down your results. Click the “Academic Journals” checkbox under “Limit by Source Type” to view just academic journal article results.
Sometimes you will need to use peer-reviewed articles for your research. To see just the peer-reviewed articles in the results, keep the “Academic Journals” limiter on and click on the “Peer Reviewed” checkbox under the Limit To section. Now all your results are peer-reviewed, academic journal articles.
Many of these results will have links directly to the PDF or links to the full text in specific database.
However, some results might not have the full text readily available. In these cases, click the Full Text Finder link, which will check for the full text in all our resources.
If it finds full text access somewhere, it will take you directly to the full text or to a journal page where you can browse to the article. If it does not find it, you can follow the "Request Item” link to our Interlibrary Loan service so we can try to get the article from another library at no cost to you.
For further assistance with QuickSearch or any other questions, feel free to contact us at the library!
What are the main differences between using the QuickSearch and using a selection of specific databases?
As mentioned above, the QuickSearch’s main advantage is that it allows you to search most of the library’s resources (like CINAHL, MEDLINE, the library’s ebooks, etc.) all at once. However, it has several drawbacks:
It is ultimately up to you how you want to explore the library's resources. Many students use a combination of the QuickSearch and individual library databases. However, you may be best off going straight to searching the specific databases that will likely provide you most your relevant search results to begin with.
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