Video: Quick Tips Using the Search Box on the Education Research Page
Narration: Librarian: Welcome to this quick tips video on how to use the Walden Library. A lot of people asked for a Google-style search box on the Walden Library website so we gave it to you. Problem is, it doesn't really work the same way as Google. And so a lot of people get frustrated with it.
Narration: Let's look at an example. If I put in the way I do in Google, my entire query-- Common Core policy in elementary schools-- and click on Search, I get no results. This doesn't make any sense because I know a lot of people are talking about it. A lot of people abandon the library at this point-- don't be one of those people.
Narration: Instead, what you can do is go back and put it in just your main concepts. And connect them with the word and. So in this case, we would put in Common Core and policy and elementary because we only want the overlap of those three concepts.
Visual: Database results page
Narration: What happens when we search it that way? We get 670 results-- that's more like it.
Narration: If you want to start to focus your results, you can look for the different ways to refine your results over on the left hand side. In this case, you can look at peer review only-- if you're interested in that. You can limit the dates, if you're looking for something historical or something really recent. And you can also look at the subjects and the different publications, if you want to narrow things down that way.
Narration: So that's just a quick way to put in your search so that you get great results in the library.