Many users would like to see one search blank for our different resources. Well, we have a beta test in progress for this. And we want you to test it.
The Albert B. Alkek Library is piloting powerful new research tools that allow library users to search multiple databases AND the library catalog AND the Texas State University eCommons, the institutional repository, all at the same time and see a list of all results.
To test these new tools and to provide feedback library staff, visit the library website at:
http://www.library.txstate.edu/research/searchbox.html to conduct a search in both options and compare results. This webpage allows you to test two different products – Option 1 or Option 2 – and provide library staff with feedback by clicking on the Vote for Option 1 or 2 button. Your feedback will help the library determine which product to purchase in the future.
MORE DETAILS ABOUT EBSCOHOST DISCOVERY SERVICE:
Recently developed by EBSCO, the EBSCO Discovery Service (EDS) is Option 1. EDS is a discovery product that is part of a new generation of Google-like research tools that feature a single search box allowing library users to enter their search terms and topics into one search box (like Google) and then execute a search across multiple resources including the library’s online catalog and institutional respository ALONG with full-text research databases and journal collections and book contents. EDS bring together all of Texas State’s information resources into one unified, customized index that is easy to use because it offers the single search box. Your results will includes print books owned by the Alkek Library, ebooks, electronic government resources, book chapters, article citations, and full-text articles from newspapers, popular magazines, and scholarly journals, streaming media, theses and dissertations in all disciplines. When you use this option, you will be searching JSTOR as well as EBSCO, H.W. Wilson, and Thomson databases and the library catalog and more.
EBSCO, a major database provider, has also developed the Ebsco PowerSearch tool which is Option 2. This option will allow you to search ALL of the EBSCO databases at the same time. Some of the databases cover multiples topics and are popular and heavily used such as Academic Search Complete. EBSCO also has numerous discipline-specific databases in a wide variety of disciplines. EBSCO is a primary database provider for Texas State and most Texas higher education institutions. The Alkek Library has approximately 85 databases from EBSCO covering all subject areas.
EBSCO’s work in the discovery area has focused on both the development of the search interface and on negotiating agreements with a wide variety of publishers and content providers to ensure that EDS will provide access to a large amount of scholarly content from the world’s largest scholarly journal and book publishers such as Elsevier (ScienceDirect), Wiley, Blackwell, Springer Science & Business Media, Taylor & Francis, Sage Publications. EBSCO has also negotiated partnerships with other content providers such as LexisNexis, Thomson Reuters (Web of Science), JSTOR, ARTStor, Credo Referenc, Oxford University Press, World Book, and ABC-CLIO.
Google’s simple and powerful one-search box has revolutionized searching the web providing immediate access to websites all over the world. As a result, individuals want to be able to conduct academic and scholarly research in a similar way. This has led to development of these new search tools that seek to simplify the search interface into a single search box like Google and facilitate finding a variety of materials from multiples sources such as the library catalog and databases and full-text articles in every discipline. This new generation of research tools is known as discovery products or interfaces. Discovery products facilitate research making it more convenient and streamlined for undergraduates and help to ensure that the research conducted pulls relevant resources from multiple high-quality scholarly and academic sources. A discovery product can also save a researcher time as it eliminates the need to run multiple searches in different databases and the library catalog.
When a student or faculty member uses this one-search discovery tool, results from multiple sources are returned all together ranked in terms of relevancy giving patrons a rich and diverse mix of books, government information sources, popular newspaper and magazine articles, scholarly journal articles. The interface also allows the research a number of ways to further refine their search and has advanced search features for sophisticated researchers.
