Library Search is the search engine of the Online Library, which retrieves reliable results from the Library’s vast and comprehensive collections. From a single search box you will be able to access all the Online Library's resources, including eBooks, journal articles, newspapers and conference proceedings.
Click the image below to watch a video tutorial or you can choose to read the written guide underneath it, to learn how to use the new Library Search Engine to look for resources in the Online Library.
Library Search is available from Homepage, Find Resources and Study Programme pages.
Starting your search
When performing a search for a specific item, do not enter an entire citation. Instead, enter the title of the item, along with the author's surname. This will help to generate more accurate results. You can use the Advanced Search to further refine your results. This is explained in more detail later in the guide.
The results page
Below is an example the results page for a search on “defamation”
- Click on the title to expand the record, allowing you to view more details about the resource, such as full-text availability and referencing options.
- Click on Available Online to take you directly to the full-text access options.
- Click on the RW icon to export the citation directly to RefWorks.
- Click on the pin icon to bookmark the resource in your My Favourites tab, where you can store a list of records to refer to later. However, this is a temporary folder and anything you’ve saved will disappear when you close your browser.
- Refine your results in the section to the left of the screen while you can filter your search results by a variety of criteria, such as resource type, subject and publication date.
The expanded record
- The Send to section provides you with a variety of options, such as exporting the citation to RefWorks and EndNote, as well as emailing, printing or sharing the record.
- The View Online section provides you with the full-text access options, listing the databases in which the resource are held, along with the years/volumes available.
What if I can’t find a journal article?
If the article you want is not on the first page of results, try putting quotation marks around the title for example “Defamation with Bayesian Audiences”.
If you still cannot find the article try adding the authors name to the search, for example “Defamation with Bayesian Audiences” and Arbel, Yonathan.
If you still cannot find the article use the Publications Search to look up the journal title to make sure that the Online Library has the journal, and that our subscription covers the publication year.
Advanced Search
There may be times when you want to do more advanced searching. Click on Advanced Search in the search bar to access this feature.
The Advanced Search feature is good for:
- Finding items written by a particular author.
- Searching for articles within a specific publication.
- Finding an article using incomplete information (if you do not know the article title but know the author and the publication).
- Refine your search by separating your keywords with Boolean operators such as ‘AND’ or ‘OR’.
- Refine your search by selecting a specific field, such as ‘Author/Creator’.
- Focus your search on a specific type of material, language and date range.
- At the bottom you can see you how your search has been constructed.
Help and Support
Use the Need Help? button at the top of the page to get further advice with searching. You can also contact the Online Library Enquiry Service by email at: onlinelibrary@london.ac.uk
Feedback
We would welcome your feedback about Library Search as this will enable us to improve the service. Please fill in this feedback form, and remember to put ‘Library Search’ in the subject line.