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Health Sciences Library Research Module

QuickSearch

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: 

  • If you don't know or aren’t sure which specific databases(s) to start with 
  • If you have an extremely specific topic for which there might not be a lot of published relevant literature 

Watch the video below to learn how to use the QuickSearch to find articles. 

QuickSearch: Articles Video Tutorial

In this short video, you will learn how to quickly find articles, including peer reviewed articles, in QuickSearch.

Transcripts

QuickSearch: Articles

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.
QuickSearch box

To begin, simply type your search terms into the QuickSearch box on the library’s homepage and click Search.
QuickSearch 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.
Limit by Source Type Limiter

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.
Limit To Limiter

Many of these results will have links directly to the PDF or links to the full text in specific database.
PDF Full Text Link

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.
Full Text Finder Button

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.
Request this item link to Interlibrary Loan

For further assistance with QuickSearch or any other questions, feel free to contact us at the library!

PDF Transcript

QuickSearch or Individual Databases?  

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 a one-stop search tool. Several resource collections and databases are excluded from the search, including several major health science resources - Trip Medical Database (an evidence-based practice database), Nursing and Allied Health Premium, and many of the journals in Ovid. 
  • QuickSearch only has very general limiting options, such as filtering by source type, language, peer-reviewed, or publication date.  
  • Since the QuickSearch can bring up so many items from so many different resources, you might end up creating more work for yourself from having to sift through all of the irrelevant search results.  

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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