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DEVELOP A SEARCH STRATEGY
IWU Online Campus Library Services provides access to many different types of databases and resources. The requirements of your assignment and your topic will determine the type of database you should use.
Use the OCLS Find Your Database page to help you select a database.
To see all the subjects use the Subject dropdown on the All Databases A-Z page.
Library Search vs. Individual Databases
The OCLS QUICKsearch will show results from a wide variety of resources and materials, including newspapers, books, multimedia, primary source documents, magazines, and journals. QUICKsearch allows you to locate content in almost all of the library databases in one search. This is a good place to get started with your research.
The OCLS QUICKsearch can be found on the OCLS homepage in the search box area.
- Enter your search terms and then review the results.
- The search results can provide you with clues for your next steps that you can use in OCLS QUICKsearch or in individual databases.
Books
Books are a great place to start your research. They offer in-depth information on a topic, but may not be as current as other sources of information.
OCLS has a collection of ebooks that you can search.
- Ebook Central (ProQuest) This link opens in a new windowThis easy-to-use database offers over 80,000 scholarly eBooks in all academic disciplines. Books may be read on your computer or downloaded to an android, iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.
- EBSCO eBooks (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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Offers over 125,000 eBooks in subjects including art, business and economics, education, language arts and literature, medicine, performing arts, philosophy, poetry, political science, religion, social science, and technology. - Credo Reference (Infobase) This link opens in a new windowCredo Reference provides access to a large number of encyclopedias, dictionaries, thesauri and other reference books. Subjects covered include art, biography, history, literature, music, religion, and science and technology.
- Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new windowA core foundation of 135+ academic subject, language, and quotations dictionaries providing carefully vetted, trusted short-entry content.
Journals
Articles in magazines and peer-reviewed scholarly journals are good sources of current information. This is where you'll find the latest research.
You can find thousands of articles in magazines and journals in the OCLS databases. Three good places to start are OCLS QUICKsearch, EBSCOhost, and ProQuest.
If you are looking for a specific journal, use the Journal Title Search tool.
- QUICKSearch (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
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Search articles, books, ebooks,videos and more. QUICKSearch provides comprehensive access to all library resources.
We love to search Google because it's fast, free, and easy to use. But it can also be overwhelming in the number of search results. Not to mention that it's hard to verify the facts and reliability of the sources.
OCLS provides access to Google Scholar, which searches for scholarly literature across multiple disciplines and sources. Google Scholar can be connected to the IWU Library to cross-search OCLS resources to see if the article is available in full text in our collection.
On the Google Scholar results page, look for links that say E-resources@indwes.edu next to an article. If you see that, you should be able to follow the link to access the full text of the article through the IWU Library.
- Google Scholar This link opens in a new windowGoogle Scholar offers a simple way to broadly search online for scholarly literature available from academic publishers, universities, professional societies, etc. Enter "Indiana Wesleyan" under Library Links to see material available for free at IWU.
