AST 30 -- Mission to the Planets (2019) with Dr. Kraal: Searching - the Big Picture

Link to the Library Homepage

Finds

• Books
• E-Books
• Streaming Video

Does not find

• Journal Articles

Why use a database and not OmniSearch?

• It contains fewer types of items.  It has mostly articles and reports.
• It is has a more focused search
  • Some databases are subject specific
  • Most databases have index terms

• More items are on the college level and for college research
• Search results can be quickly limited to... 
  • Peer reviewed (Scholarly) articles
  • a specific date or range of dates
  • Full-text 
• Provides Citation information for a variety of guides (APA, Chicago, MLA, etc)

Link to OmniSearch

Pros

• Searches almost everything we own
• One stop shopping
• Good for finding a needle in a hay stack
• Provides citations for items found

Cons

• Results can be overwhelming
• Subject words are not uniform across databases
• Finds many non-scholarly works
• Finds more off-topic information