Library Research Guide
Search It helps you discover and obtain library resources. It enables simultaneous searching of information about K-State Libraries' physical and online collections, and about articles and other sources from hundreds of databases, journal publishers, and organizations. It is an invaluable research tool for novices and experts alike. This guide will teach you how to use Search It to find resources.
To take full advantage of Search It, you will need to login. See the My Account section of this guide for more information.
If you have any questions about Search It or about this guide, do not hesitate to Ask a Librarian.
To find materials written by a specific person, follow these steps:
1. Access the advanced search screen
2. Change the top-left drop-down menu to "as author/creator"
3. Enter the last name of the person and click search.
4. Put a check mark in the include column for each potential variant of the person's name. Then click continue.
After you perform a search in Search It, you can click "more options" under the Topics category to see a list of topics covered by the set of results you found. This can be a useful way to get a broad picture of what an author has researched.
For example, using the results obtained from clicking the continue in the search box above, you can obtain the following list of topics:
To find articles, books, and other resources about a topic of interest, follow these steps:
1. Access Search It's advanced search screen
2. Use one row for each main concept in your topic.
a. In each row enter synonyms or words that are related to the concept. Link these with OR
b. Use a asterisk to stem a term so that you will find words with variant endings. For example, stereotyp* will find any word beginning with "stereotyp". This includes stereotype, stereotypes, stereotypical, stereotyping.
For example, if your topic is cognitive influences on stereotyping of women, you would dedicate one row to the concept cognitive, one to the concept stereotyping, and one to the concept women. After thinking of closely related terms and adding asterisks, you might come up with:
3. Click search. Examine the first page or two of results and note any terms that are also related to any of the concepts.
4. Examine the list of topics pulled up in the results set by clicking "more options" under the topics heading. Note any terms that are also related to any of the concepts
5. Revise the search by adding the terms you have noted. Use OR to link these to the previous set of terms you used.
When a resource is available online through Search It, below the title of the resource there will be a green dot and the words "Available Online." To access the resource, click the "View It" tab.
When you click the View It tab, one of the following will happen:
If Search It does not show online full text for an article or for a book chapter, below the title there will be a yellow or gray dot with the words "Not Available Online." To discover if K-State Libraries has a physical version of the article or book chapter, click the "Check for physical copy" tab.
If K-State Libraries' owns any volumes of the journal in which the article was published, the "Check for physical copy" tab will show a list of the volumes and indicate where they are located. Notice that it also displays the "Request from Interlibrary Loan" link. Use that link if the volume you need is not listed on the tab. See the Interlibrary Loan tab in this guide to learn more about that service.
