Get Help
If you have questions or need help accessing library materials, ask library staff on our live chat (real humans).
Library Search is a powerful multidisciplinary discovery tool that allows you to search across the University of Alberta Library's extensive collections; including books, articles, journals, media, and more, all in one place.
What are you Searching?
When you begin your search you will be able to choose the following categories:
-
Everything: Library Catalogue + Articles
-
Library Catalogue: Online and physical resources in the University of Alberta Library collection, which include items such as, books, ebooks, multimedia, maps, music scores, curriculum materials, etc., plus selected open-access resources. Journal and database titles, but not the articles or other content contained within them.
-
Articles: Peer-reviewed journal articles, magazine articles, book chapters, and more from the Library collection. Leads you to the full-text of articles and ebook chapters that the Library subscribes to, plus selected open-access content.
-
Note: to expand your search, see Search Beyond the Library
Basic Searching
Use keywords in the search bar on the library's homepage. Type and press enter on your keyboard.
Important Search Tips
Boolean operators, parentheses, phrase searching, wildcards and truncations can all be combined to perform more pecise searches.
e.g. peace AND "United Nations" AND (wom?n OR girl* OR female)
| Keywords | Type the main words or phrases related to your research topic into the search box (do not use full sentences). | game-based learning AND student AND motivation AND (elementary OR K-6) |
| Spelling | Double-check your spelling to ensure accurate results. | |
| Boolean Operators | AND, OR, NOT: Use these capitalized words to combine or exclude keywords for more precise results. |
AND: Narrows your search to include all specified keywords. e.g. climate change AND Alberta OR: Broadens your search to include any of the specified keywords. e.g., (anxiety OR stress) NOT: Excludes results containing a specific keyword. e.g., artificial intelligence NOT ChatGPT |
| Phrases " " | Put phrases in quotation marks to search for those exact words in that order. | "renewable energy sources" |
| Truncation * | Use an asterisk (*) at the end of a root word to find variations of that word. Root words must be at least 4 letters long. | comput* will find computer, computing, computation, etc. |
| Wildcard ? | Use a question mark (?) to replace a single character within a word. | wom?n will find both woman and women. |
| Parentheses (Brackets) | Use parentheses to differentiate concepts within complex searches. | (student OR youth OR child*) AND ("game-based learning" OR "inquiry based learning") |
Have questions about how any of these search tips work? Ask Us!