EDS Basics - Let's Learn EDS!
Channel: Amedeo DeCara
Date: 2022-02-03

This video will give you a brief introduction to how you can use the basic features of EDS (EBSCO Discovery Service). Transcript is available below the time stamps!

00:00 - Introduction
00:48 - Advanced Searching
01:33 - Useful Search Tricks
02:40 - Limiting Results
04:07 - Get It and Linking
04:44 - Support

Let’s Learn EDS!: EDS Basics

In this video, we’re going to take a look at the basics of using EDS (EBSCO Discovery Service, aka “Discovery”) as a search tool.

(We’ll also hopefully answer a few frequently asked questions that library staff have about the system.)

EDS probably works very similarly to tools that you use all the time.

You can easily search for keywords, titles, authors, subjects, etc. 

Note: these options are often unavailable in the simplified search boxes on our libraries’ homepages! They appear once you are in EDS.

An advanced search enables you to perform more complex Boolean (“and/or/not”) searches and set some parameters ahead of time.

You can also add Boolean operators on each line when you enter your search terms. No need to capitalize them!

Tip: it doesn't need to be an advanced search for this to work!

Keep in mind that, by default, if you add more than one search term to a line without any operators, it will treat it as though you had used an “and.”

Now let's look at a few more tricks you can use to fine-tune your search:

Truncation searching allows you to add an asterisk to a portion of a word - like teen* - to bring up results that include all words that begin with the letters preceding the asterisk.
Putting quotation marks around a phrase - like “climate change” -  tells the system that you want only results that include those words together in that order.
If you don’t need an exact phrase but do want to make sure that two words or phrases are near each other, proximity searching will let you do that. For example...
Typing in "climate N5 change" tells EDS that you’re interested in results that have up to 5 words between climate and change. 
(Use "W" instead of "N" if you need your words to stay in the same order!)

Once you have a list of results, there are many ways to winnow them down to what you really want.

We're going to do this using limiters! A few of the most commonly used limiters include:

Full Text: Limits to resources - usually articles - that are available to read in their entirety online, omitting results that only include a citation and/or abstract.
Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals: Limits to resources that are from publications listed as using a peer review process.
Five College Library Catalog Only: Limits to results that have been purchased by a Five College library and cataloged; useful if you want to eliminate results from article databases.
Date: limits to materials published within the date range you select.
Source Type: limits to only a particular type of resource, i.e. news, ebooks, videos, etc. The "show more" button is very useful for this limiter!
Library Location: limits to resources owned by a particular library; just make sure you choose all the relevant locations for your institution.

You’ll also notice that some resources include a link that says something like “Get It” or “Check for Full Text.” 

This is a Full Text Finder link, which searches for full text access across the library’s subscriptions, including in places that aren’t searched by EDS.

Each Five College library has their Full Text Finder links set up in different ways, so it is worth exploring how this tool works at your institution!

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to one of our volunteer troubleshooters…

Kelly Dagan - Amherst
kdagan@amherst.edu

Jen Bolmarcich - Hampshire
jbolmarcich@hampshire.edu

Amedeo DeCara - Mount Holyoke
adecara@mtholyoke.edu

Sika Berger - Smith
sberger@smith.edu

Jaime Taylor - UMass
jaimetaylor@umass.edu

Many thanks to the Five College Library Committees that contributed time and ideas to this project:

   -User Experience
   -Innovative Learning
   -Discovery
   -And our volunteers

Last updated February 3, 2022.