Advanced Search now available in Discover
An exciting new search option was released for Discover during the maintenance window on Thursday, June 25. The default keyword search is ideal for general topic discovery of resources. With the addition of this new feature, you also have the option refine your search for resources with a known title or known author. Advanced Search returns results from all six bento categories. You can also elect to refine by a specific focus view.
To illustrate the way Advanced Search can function to your advantage, consider these examples.
Example 1: Known title
Someone is interested in viewing the comic strip, Katzenjammer Kids. Because they know the title, they select Advanced Search and enter their terms in the title field, then further limit by Digital Collections. The top results include image thumbnails of all the digitized comic strips by that title from the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
Example 2: Known author
Someone read an online thought piece by Roxane Gay, and would like to read more by this author. By switching to the Advanced Search button and searching the author field only, they see that she has published both articles and books, and can now berrypick for something to read.
Example 3: Known title and author
A user wishes to read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison. They select Advanced Search and enter the terms in the title field. Results that match that title are returned in most bentos.
A quick scan shows that some of the results are for the novel The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells, instead of the similarly titled book by Ellison.
To further refine, the user can add Ellison to author field, and also elect to search only within the Library Catalog view.
The results are now more precise.
Bonus: the user may elect to access the full text via HathiTrust Digital Library:
As you use this new feature and introduce it to users, we would appreciate your feedback. To do so, please click the Need Help? button in the results page and click the option for Feedback.
