Search Omni to find books and other materials owned by the Library. You can search by keywords, author, title or subject headings. Apply filters to fine-tune your search results e.g. Books & eBooks. Filters are located on the left hand side of the Omni search page, after you have performed a search.
To find a specific known item, search by title or author. To find books on a topic, either try a subject or keyword search.
Subject headings allow you to search for resources on a particular author or topic and are often more productive than keyword searches.
Keyword searches work best if you have multiple concepts or topics and need only a few books.
For a comprehensive subject search, search with subject headings as well as keywords.
Searching Omni
Start with a keyword search, but expect to revise it.
Keyword Searching TIPS
|
Search Technique |
What It Does |
|
quotation marks |
Searches for exact phrase |
|
Truncation * |
Searches for all forms of a word |
|
Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) |
Lets you broaden or narrow your search |
Use a keyword search if you have multiple concepts or topics. Browse your results to find the assigned subject headings in order to find more books on your topic.
Think of the focus (or key) words that describe your topic. For example:
"new media" AND culture
Subject headings allow you to search Omni for resources on a particular topic and are often more productive that keyword searches.
Examples of subject headings:
Communication and culture
Digital media
Facebook (Electronic resources)
Internet
Internet Social aspects
Information society
Mass media
Media
Social network
Twitter
YouTube (Electronic resources)
Art and the internet
Computers and civilization
Digital divide
Digital storytelling
Human computer interaction
Interactive media
Internet advertising
Motion pictures in ethnology
Technological innovations
Technology and the arts
Technology Social aspects
User interface (Computer sytems)
Visual communication