QuickSearch Federated Searching at the UH West O'ahu Library

Here's a short list of the problems with databases:

  1. There are lots of databases.
  2. They have different interfaces.
  3. You can only search them one at a time.

About QuickSearch:

Our solution to these problems is QuickSearch. It uses just one interface and allows you to search multiple databases all at once. You decide which databases to search. To help make your selections, there are short database descriptions in QuickSearch. You can limit your searches to fulltext and scholarly peer-reviewed articles by clicking those boxes before the search begins.

QuickSearch is the UH West O'ahu Library implementation of WebFeat Express, a federated search engine used by libraries worldwide. Federated search engines use software designed to query multiple networked information resources through a single interface. QuickSearch can be used to search fulltext databases, library catalogs, and abstracting and indexing databases.

Using Advanced Search:
  1. Under "Enter search criteria," select the fields you wish to search. Your choices are All, Keyword, Title, Author, Abstract, or Subject. (Keyword is the default.) Enter your search term(s).
  2. You can limit the dates to be covered in the search with the "Publication date" ranges.
  3. If you like, you can limit your search to "Full-text articles only" and/or "Peer-reviewed articles only" by checking the appropriate box(es).
  4. If you like, you can "Select category" and use the databases the librarians have chosen for each subject by clicking on one or more subject categories. If you want to select the databases yourself, check as many as you would like from the "List of resources" below. You can select or deselect all of the databases by clicking on the Select/Deselect all box.
  5. Click on the "Search" button to start your search.
  6. When the search is complete, a summary of results will appear on the screen. It will have the number of hits, the database name, and a brief description of the database. Click on the database name to go to that result set then click on the "View" button to read the article.

We've added star ratings in the search results so you'll know which databases the librarians think are the most valuable. In general, five stars means a database is fulltext and scholarly or peer reviewed; four stars means there is fulltext and some of the material is scholarly and peer reviewed; and, three stars means there is little or no scholarly review.

Limitations of QuickSearch:

  1. QuickSearch doesn't cover all of our databases. To see the complete list of our databases, go to http://socrates.uhwo.hawaii.edu/library/otherdatabases.html.
  2. QuickSearch doesn't use the database's own or native interface. That means you can't do the most sophisticated kinds of searching. However, you can go directly into the database from QuickSearch and use the native interface.
  3. One issue we know you'll encounter includes references to parts of databases we don't have access to. For instance, our subscription to Science Magazine online only covers from 1997 to the present, but QuickSearch will search all the way back to the first issue in 1880 unless you specify a set of dates (1997 to 2008) to limit the search.

Click here to go to QuickSearch.

If you have questions or comments about QuickSearch, send e-mail to uhwolib@hawaii.edu or call 808.455.0497.

Last revised July 25, 2008.