Supersearch guide

Searching with Quicksearch

QuickSearch, QuickSets

• QuickSearch: is a simple way to search selected sets of databases in Supersearch, eg. library catalogs, databases, and websites using QuickSets.
• QuickSets: are sets of resources that are predefined by the subject librarians and are organized and presented by topic.

New users, who may not be familiar with resources, can select a QuickSet based on a topic and description and conduct their searches. Users who are familiar with Supersearch can create their own personal sets, called MySets or My Databases

If you have created any database folders in My Databases, your folders will also appear as quicksets in Quicksearch.

Doing a search in the simple search tab

• Click the button next to a set name to select a set to search. You can only choose one set to search at a time.
• Click the name of the set to see the databases that will be searched.
• Enter a word or phrase in the search box.
• Click Go

In most cases, if you enter more than one word Supersearch will do a keyword search for all the words. To search for a phrase, enclose the phrase in quotation marks.

A search for sustainable design will match records where the word sustainable and the word design appear somewhere in the record.

A search for " sustainable design" will match records where these words appear together as a phrase.

You can truncate a word or part of a word using * or ?

A search for australia? will find records containing australia, australian, australians...

Doing a search in the advanced search tab

Click Advanced to switch to the Advanced search tab.

• Click the Search in fields dropdown list to search in a specific field such as author, title or subject. The default setting is to search all fields.
• Enter a word or phrase in the first search box. You can also choose an operator from the dropdown list and enter a word or phrase in the second search box.
• Click Go.

Quicksearch results

Supersearch sends your search to the databases in the selected set. You will see a progress screen while Supersearch is retrieving results.

You don't need to wait for all the searches to finish before viewing results. Click View Retrieved to see the initial set of results that were retrieved by Supersearch.

When the search is complete, Supersearch will show the first set of results in a combined set.

If your search found a large number of records, only some of them will be retrieved at first. Additional records will be retrieved as you move through the results set. In the combined set you can retrieve more records by clicking retrieve more.

By default the results are displayed in Table view and are sorted by rank (relevance). Click the link to display in Brief view (you can set the default view in My Space/Preferences). Click the Sort by dropdown list to sort the initial list by title, author, year or database.

Viewing the full record

Click the title on the Table or Brief view screens to see the full view for a selected record. In full view, click Table View or Brief View to return to the results list.

The full view shows the citation details plus an abstract if available. It also shows the Resource (database) that was searched. The words you searched for are highlighted in the full view record.

In some cases the full text article may be shown in the full view. In other cases there may be a link to full text - this will be labelled External.

You can also click the SFX button to find full text and other services. or

The Full Text button shows that a link to full text is available via SFX. Click or to see full text links only.

Click the Resource name to link to the database.

The database will open in a new window. Where possible Supersearch will link you to the specific record in the database. In other cases it is not possible to link directly to the specific record so Supersearch will link you to the database start page.