Using Filters in Library Search to Focus Results

Library Search is a discovery tool, allowing you to find items within the library collections.

In this blog post I’m going to look at how you can use the filter options to focus your search results. Here is an example search – diabetes type 1 and teenagers – and the search results.

Search Results presented in Library Search, filter options on the left-hand-side

The filter options are all on the left-hand-side of the screen. The filter options may depend on the type of items returned by your search. Typically you can filter by:

• Full-text availability
• Resources Type
• Date (usually publication date)
• Subject – subject headings available will depend on your results
• Library – if print items are included in your results

Range of filter options presented for this set of results

Be aware that restricting your search may bias your results. Be clear on why you are using the filters.

Here are some options that you might want to consider:

1. Include results with no full text.

This will increase the number of results presented, although you may not get full-text access to all of them.

Remember that the full-text option only refers to Keele subscribed full-text. NHS users will need to check NHS-subscribed resources in order to determine whether they have access to full-text articles and ebooks.

Click the option "include results with no full-text" to see all the results from the relevant resources

You can check the Health Library website to see all the options on accessing full-text.

2. Publication Date Range

You can select a date range by year to filter your results. This is useful if you want to check whether there is any recent research available.

View of the Date filter option

I have reduced the date range to the years 2000 to 2019.

3. Subject

The Subject filter option might be helpful to focus your search further. The values presented here are generated from the content presented in your results. You can select more than one option at a time.

View of the Subject terms presented for this set of results, with my selections ticked

In my example I have selected to view only items which include the subject terms relating to young people.

Note that the subject terms presented here are not the same as thesaurus terms used within a bibliographic database.

4. Viewing your Filters

You can see all the filters you have selected at the top of the search results. To remove a filter click the “X”. You can also reset all the filters, this will cancel them all in one go.

View of the filter options that I have selected - date range and subject terms

Be aware that search on Library Search is not as comprehensive as using the bibliographic databases such as Cinahl and Medline.

All the Library Search blog posts have been tagged with the hashtag #LibrarySearch_demos. You can view all the posts that will help you to use Library Search by clicking this tag.

You can find more help on using Library Search by checking the Online Guides and Support section of our website.