Omni is the library's discovery and delivery tool. Here are a few search tips on the following topics to help you get started.
Please contact your subject specialist or librarian for a consultation on advanced research approaches within your discipline.
Search Tips on:
- Basic Searching
- Add Results beyond Carleton + Omni Libraries's collection
- Find Specific Titles
- Advanced Search
- Journal Searching
- Use Filters to refine your results
- Pin Sources in My Favourites
- Cite and Export Sources
- Virtual Browse
- Related Reading
- Follow Citation Trails
- Relevance Ranking
Basic Searching
Apply Boolean operators to focus results:
- AND combines descriptive keywords/concepts (AND must be in capitals) e.g. migration AND climate
- Quotations for phrases e.g. "genetically modified foods"
- OR between related words (OR must be in capitals) e.g. habitat OR ecosystem
- NOT to exclude terms (NOT must be in capitals) e.g. corona NOT virus
- Asterisk for alternate word endings e.g. cultur* for culture, cultural, and culturally
- Question mark for single character wildcard e.g. wom?n for woman, women
- Brackets to group terms e.g. "climate change" AND (ecosystem* OR habitat*) Ontario
- Automatic search expansion includes additional terms e.g. heart attack returns "myocardial infarction"
Find Specific Titles
To find a specific book or article title:
- perform a keyword search with quotations around your title to force an exact phrase search (e.g. "A Brief history of time"). If you cannot isolate the title, try using the Advanced Search as follows.
- click on "Advanced Search", select "title" as the field, choose "is (exact)", and select the preferred "Resource Type".
Advanced Search
Advanced Search enables additional techniques for narrowing results. You can apply Boolean operators and:
- limit words and phrases to a specific field such as title or subject
- identify the material type you want such as books or articles
- select the language you prefer
- set a date range
- The example below illustrates a search for material relating to the forced migration of women and children.
- The red arrows show the exact phrase "forced migration" has been limited to the title field and is in quotations.
- Women OR child* has been added to the search and the OR command is in caps. The asterisk at the end of a word replaces all possbile endings.
- The material type is set for All Items (includes both articles and books), and English language is selected.
Journal Searching
- Enter a journal title in the search box or use the Journal by category option to browse journals by category.
-
Search for articles within the journal
Use Filters to Refine your results
Sort by
Results are automatically sorted by relevance as determined by:
- Frequency of matching words
- A value score (query words in author, title, subject, plus date)
- Proximity of search words to one another
Note: If you sort by Date-newest, you lose the relevance ranking.
Availability
- "Available Online" limits results to online only content.
- "Print/Physical Item" means physically available at MacOdrum library and includes books, DVD's, CD's, etc.
- "Open Access" limits results to content that is freely available whether or not you are logged in via MyCarletonOne single sign-on. It may also be peer-reviewed.
- "Peer-reviewed Journals" limits results to content that has gone through an academic peer-review process.
Resource Types
Resource types are listed by frequency and according to your current search and include: articles, audiovisual, books & e-books, book chapters, conference proceedings, data sets, images, maps, newspapers, scores, reference entries (from an encyclopedia or handbook), reviews, technical reports, theses & dissertations, and videos.
- Move the cursor to the left of a resource type and click the box to select it.
- Move the cursor to the right and click the red check mark to exclude it.
Finding Newspapers
- To search a specific newspaper, choose "Journal Search" from the top banner, type the exact title, then "Search inside" to retrieve articles within that single newspaper.
- Alternatively, perform a new search, then click "Newspaper articles" from the Resource Type listings. This locates topical news articles within many newspapers.
- For historical newspapers, consult the Historical Archives web page.
Publication Date
Input a specific date range and select "Refine"
Subjects
Omni uses a combination of Library of Congress and medical subject headings and subject tags from article databases. Search results can be narrowed through selection or exclusion of multiple subject headings.
- Click to the left of a heading to select it.
- Click to the right to exclude it.
Author/Creator
Includes principal authors, corporations, and government agencies such as the Ontario Ministry of Education and the Public Health Agency of Canada.
Pin Sources in My Favourites
You can "pin" or save records of interest to "My Favourites" as you discover them. Go to "My Favourites" to view your pinned items.
- Select the push pin icon beside the resource you want to "pin."
Groups of citations can be exported within My Favourites:
- Select the items for export
- Click on the three dots
- Download (to RIS Export)
Cite and Export Sources
To quickly cite an item, select the quotation icon located in the right hand corner of a record.
Select the citation style. Currently there are five options:
- MLA (7th edition)
- APA (6th ed.)
- Chicago/Turabian (16th ed.)
- MLA (8th ed.)
- Harvard
Copy citations to a clipboard or Email selected items to yourself. Click here for more help with Citation Management.
Virtual Browse
Scroll to the bottom of a single record for a physical item to virtually browse other items sitting next to it on the shelf. Or, click "Virtual Browse" located in the left hand menu.
Note: Not all book covers appear and this feature is not associated with Browse option in the banner.
Related Reading
- Use the "Related Reading" feature in Omni to discover other similar items. It is located on the right side of electronic article records.
- The "Related Reading" list is harvested from user data from academic institutions around the world. Related items may be from different journals, publishers and platforms.
Follow Citation Trails
Notice the markers (up and down arrows) indicating citations that can be followed to find related sources. This is also known as Citation Chaining.
- Up arrows find sources citing this item.
- Down arrows find sources cited in this item.
Relevance Ranking
Results are ranked using Intelligent Ranking Technology: word match, value score, and word proximity
- Frequency of matching search words
- A value score (query words in author, title, subject, plus date)
- Proximity of search words to one another
- Publication Date (most recent)
- Search type (known item or topic search)
- Local records are boosted so they appear higher on the results list
- At least one highly relevant item should appear in the first 10 results
See also our Featured collections.