Using xSearch http://xsearch.stanford.edu

Provided by Deep Web Technologies and Stanford University Libraries and Academic

Information Resources (SULAIR)

Grace Baysinger (graceb@stanford.edu)Revised September 2011

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Challenges Finding Information

Information overload Millions of articles, books, and web sites Thousands of sources and search interfaces

Answers often require an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approach

Need high quality information quickly and easily

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Multi-Resource Search Engines Help Reduce

the Number of Places You Need to Search

Examples of Major Sites: Web of Knowledge CSA Illumina EbscoHost OCLC Proquest

Examples of Specialized Sites: ChemID Plus DiscoveryGate Entrez Science.gov ScienceResearch.com SciFinder Scitopia ToxNet WorldWideScience

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But You Often Need to Search Resources Provided by Different Providers

Federated searching lets you simultaneously search multiple sources from different providers using one query

Key features of a good federated search service include: Search > 10 resources simultaneously Sources searched in real time Search engine is fast and has excellent relevancy ranking of results Users can refine, analyze, sort results, and go to items from a specific

source Results are de-duplicated so that same item doesn’t appear multiple

times Easy access to the full-text for content licensed by Stanford Export citations to a reference manager Save queries or set up alerts Integrate searching into your local environment (e.g. CourseWork, web

pages).

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xSearch Developed by Deep Web Technologies in consultation with

SULAIR, xSearch is a federated search service for current students, faculty, and staff at Stanford. The URL is:

http://xsearch.stanford.edu

Due to licensing restrictions, up to 100 items are retrieved for most sources.

Number of items retrieved from a resource varies each time a search is performed.

Most duplicate citations are eliminated before search results are displayed.

Unlike many web search engines, xSearch queries are performed in real time.

Note: ALL links open in the same window. Use Open New Tab/New Window feature in a browser to keep search results page when you want to view full records/full-text.

SearchWorks vs. xSearch For books and journals, what’s being searched?

SearchWorks Stanford’s Library Catalog

Books: Citation, Table of Contents,

Summary, Subjects, Shelf Location, Links to full-text

Journals Title, Publisher, Subject

terms for each journal title

xSearch Discovery Tool to Search

Multiple Resources at the Same Time

Books: Full-text, Book Reviews

Journals Full-Text, Subject or index

terms for each journal article

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xSearch Resources Include a Broad Array of Document Types and Subject Areas

Document Types Abstracts and indexes

Citations, Abstracts, and Indexing for Books, Book Reviews, Journal Articles, Conference Proceedings, Dissertations, Patents, Reports

Full-text Resources Books, Journals, News

Sources, Reference Materials

Library Catalogs Data Sets, Special & Archival

Collections

Subject Areas Area and International Studies Business Humanities Multidisciplinary Science and Engineering Social Sciences

Languages Mostly English Some Western European and

Slavic No Arabic, Chinese, Hebraic,

Japanese, Korean No special programming done

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What Resources are in xSearch?Hover Your Mouse Over the Name of a Source or Click on About the

Resources link to See the Description of a Resource

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Do Quick Search Using Keywords OR Choose Advanced Search for More Options

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Search Tips

Want to Search Description Example Search Results Will Include

Case sensitiveTerms are not case sensitive, can type them in upper or lower case letters

RAIN rain [search results will be identical]

Wildcard *Asterisk is used for zero or more characters, including numbers, letters, and punctuation. Can be used at beginning or end of terms.

Author search on zare r*Zare R OR Zare RN OR Zare Richard

OR Zare Richard N

Wildcard ? Question mark is used for exactly one character. DO? DOE or DOI or DOT or DOG

Exact Phrase Use double quotation marks around terms "vitamin a" [this exact phrase]

Multiple terms If you only enter terms and no Boolean operator, AND is assumed (all terms must be present)

global warming global financial market is warming up

Boolean OperatorsUse AND, OR, or NOT (AND=all terms must be present, OR=either term present, NOT=without term present)

behavior* OR behaviour* OR mood*

alteration of mood via music

ParenthesesUse to group terms when using OR as well as AND, NOT

("water soluble" OR hydrophilic*) AND

adhesion

evidence for van der Waals adhesion in gecko setae

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Advanced Search Options Include Searching by Keywords, Title, Author, and Date

Author: using the last name of a single author will yield the best results. Your results may not be ranked, depending on the information provided by the source.

Date Range: search all dates prior or post by selecting only one range.

Advanced Search – Selections by Broad Category

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Click on plus sign to view resources in a category

About the eBooks Category

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The eBooks category does not include all ebooks at Stanford.

Some providers are not included in xSearch yet (e.g. Cambridge Books Online).

Other providers are in xSearch but because it is not possible to do an initial search on only ebooks, these providers were not added to the eBooks category in xSearch (e.g. Elsevier, Springer, Wiley) .

About the Multi-disciplinary Category

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Resources in this category are a “short list” of popular resources that contain materials in more than one subject area.

Use this category for a quick exploratory search.

Multi-disciplinary resources are also included to subject-specific categories as appropriate.

Use a subject-specific category for a more in-depth search.

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Custom Search Engines

Groups of resources for a Subject or a Course have been created by subject specialist librarians for your use.

Create Your Own Custom Search: Put your favorite databases into a Custom search page.

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Custom Search Engine Selections by Subject Area (as of 9/28/2011 )

Sample Search We want to find info about Green Energy in California.

To broaden search, we are including two synonyms for green - “alternative” and “sustainable.” We are searching sustain* to find words that begin with this stem.

We are limiting California to the Title field as doing so means that an author considered California to be important enough that it should be present in the title. And like Google Scholar, searching California as a keyword retrieves items that include California as a part of the author’s address.

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Entering Sample Search Strategy

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Progress BarIt is possible to begin viewing results while search is still in

progress. See Progress Bar to view status of search.

Additional Results AvailableOnce search is finished, press green button to view all

items in search results

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See Results Summary to Verify that Search Ran in All Sources and Which Sources Contain the Most on Your Topic.

About Results SummaryTotal = # Items Found in a Resource

Results = # Items in brought into xSearch by Explorit, the relevancy ranking search engine used in xSearch

An red X or timeout clock instead of a green check means a resource failed to search or timed out and brought back no results. Try running search again and if access still fails, please send Feedback

Set Session Preferences (Optional)

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You can view up to 250 items per page.

Preferences only work for current session, not future sessions.

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Refine Search by Choosing From Dynamically Generated Clusters

Can Refine by Topics, Authors, Sources, and Dates.

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Use Sort and Limit to View Results From Different Perspectives

Sort by: Rank, Date, Title, or Author. Limit by Source: View items from a Particular Source. (Note: some

items may have been removed during the de-duplication process.)

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Finding the Full-TextClick on S (Find it at Stanford) Button, PDF/HTML Icon or

Title Link When No Icon is Present to View the Full-Text or a Full Record for More Information.

Note: ALL links open in the same window. Consider using new tab/window in browser when viewing results/full-text so that you can also easily go back to the search results.

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Select Items of Interest – Check the Box Next to Desired Items and View in My Selections.

Create Your Own Citation Database to Use as References in Term Papers, Theses, and Articles

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Download My Selections to Your Computer for Importing into a reference manager software program such as EndNote or Directly Export Citations to RefWorks or EndNote Web. You can also print or email selected items too.

“Write-N-Cite” plugins enable you to insert a reference into a Microsoft Word document. After citing, you can generate an automatically formatted bibliography from using an output style.

Unfamiliar with citation management tools? Talk to your local librarian as using them can save you a lot of time!

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Create an Alert from Your Search Results to Get New Information on Your Topic

An alert is a saved search that can be run

every week, month, quarter, or year. You are

notified about new citations on your topic.

Use My Alerts link to view new citations in the

xSearch interface.

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Creating an Alert – Specify Options for Frequency Search is Run and the Way Results are Delivered

Tip: Be sure to Save Alert before

you Test it.

Can have citations from Alerts delivered via

email, an RSS feed, and an Atom feed.

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Create a Custom Search Engine With Your Favorite Sources

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Creating a New Custom Search Engine

Give Your Custom Engine a Name

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Creating a Custom Search Engine Enter Display Title, Description, and Move Desired Sources

in Collections from Left to Right Window.

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Save Custom Search Engine

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Use Custom Search in a Web Page or Course Page as a Link or an Embedded Search Box

Link: click on Preview button and get URL from the address bar.

Embedded search box: click on Links and then copy and paste widget code into an html editor.

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Preview of Custom Search EngineFixed URL in Address Bar can be Used as a Link in a Web

Page or Bookmarked in Your Browser

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Widget Code for Putting an Embedded Search Box of a Custom Search Engine into a Web Page

Copy and paste widget code into a web page to add an embedded search box for your custom engine.

Example of a Custom Search Engine Embedded in a Research Guide

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Can Also Use Custom Engine From xSearch

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Click on Custom Searches to use a custom engine you built from the xSearch website

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Help/More Information xSearch

http://xsearch.stanford.edu/ “Companion Site” for xSearch

http://lib.stanford.edu/xsearch/ Off-Campus Access

http://library.stanford.edu/apcproxy/index.html RefWorks (Stanford has Campus-wide Site License)

http://www.refworks.com/refworks/ EndNote web (Available on Web of Knowledge web site)

http://ezproxy.stanford.edu:2048/login?url=http://webofknowledge.com/ Ask a Librarian

http://library.stanford.edu/ask_us/general_comments.html