 How to Begin a Database Search, brought to you by the John M. Fowl Library at California State University, San Bernardino. This tutorial will show you the very first steps to begin a database search. Please consult our other tutorials and library guides for information on choosing and narrowing topic, keyword searching, finding full text articles, etc. And at the end of this brief video, I will show you where to find those on our website. Let's go to the library's home page. If you start off on the campus home page, there's a link to the library right up at the top. The library pays for subscriptions to more than 150 databases. These databases have been chosen because they provide access to information and research that supports CSUSB's curriculum and students. As a CSUSB student, you get free access to everything. The OneSearch database is right up front on our website because it allows you to find books, media, and other materials at the Fowl Library. If you're looking for books, whether in print or online, use OneSearch. Let me give you a quick demonstration. When I enter my keyword search, I get a drop-down menu. OneSearch can do more than find things at the Fowl Library. Let me explain what's going on here. The first choice, everything, is exactly what it says. It is searching all the articles, all the content of all 150 databases, and all the libraries in the CSU system at once. Sometimes this really huge search is what you need, and sometimes it can be overwhelming. Give it a try and see what you think. The Articles option eliminates the CSU libraries, but still gives you all the articles from all 150 more and more databases. Still, this one can be overwhelming. When you're looking for books or other materials at the Fowl Library, always choose Books and Media here. And if you want to look at what the other CSU libraries have, because you can order books from other CSU libraries through our CSU Plus system, choose this search. And finally, you'll have course reserves, which get you to your textbooks if they're available. Let's demonstrate this search, Black Lives Matter, in Books and Media, CSUSB. And so we know that we've found 164 results, and the books may be online or in print. Obviously the ones that are online just say available online. The ones that are in print will say Fowl Library, and that will give you a floor location, a call number, and you can request these for pick-up through a system that we have with some lockers. Alright, and go back. And for further information on what one search can do for you, check here, Search Tips, and you'll find lots of information on every single thing that it can do. The rest of our 150 databases live down here under this button. Choose a database. The list of databases is done two ways, from A to Z, by the title, if you happen to know the title, the database that you're looking for, but most of the time you're going to be going by a subject area. We also have some categories that relate to the type of content, for example, newspapers and video. And these are not the actual databases. These are just the categories for the databases. Let me show you what I mean. Let's take a look at communication studies. So when we click on that, we get a screen that shows us which of our more than 150 databases are most useful for communication studies topics. You see below that additional databases that you can try, and a little further on down, a selection of our library guides that will help you in relation to this area of study. On the right-hand side, you'll see the librarian that specializes in this subject area. And you can email them, make a research appointment, and get help from a librarian with your research. And I'm going to go back, and let's take a look at one other category. Let's do natural sciences. So again, the same kind of setup. The most useful databases are identified up here at the top. The next most useful ones come after that, and then library guides to help you with your research. And again, on the right-hand side, you can see the librarian that specializes in this area and contact them. I'm going to back up here. So how do you choose which database for your topic? You can contact a librarian. You will find our Ask a Librarian button throughout our website. We would be glad to recommend which one to start with. Or you can match the subject area here to your class. That's in one way of doing it. When you're off campus and you're accessing our databases, you will need to use your MyCoyote login. So let's do a couple of examples here. If I'm in a psychology class and I have an assignment that requires me to find some scholarly journal articles, what I'm going to do is click on that Choose Our Database button on the website. And when I get to this screen, I'm going to go over to Psychology. And that will give me the list that I can start with for my research. Let me back up. Now, if instead I have, let's say, an assignment in a GE writing class, and I can write an essay on any topic I want, I just have to do some research on the topic. And the topic that I've chosen is Greta Thunberg, the Young Climate Activist Girl. Now I could ask a librarian to recommend the best database for the topic. Or I could do this. If I don't know what category matches, I can always go to the category for articles. And you'll see that the article search in one search, which we talked about before, comes up and also some other general databases that will help you. I'm going to show you the second one, EBSCO Host Academic Search Premier. And on the search screen for this database and many of our other ones, there's lots of things that you can fiddle with here. But what do you want to look for is a box that says Scholarly or Peer Reviewed. That's a good one, usually. Your assignments will usually ask you for Scholarly journals. The box that you never want to touch is the full text box if there is one. And this is kind of strange. But if you click in this box, you will turn off a system that we paid extra for that overlays all of the 150 databases that we get. That gets you the maximum amount of full text no matter what database it's in. If you make a mistake and you click in that full text box on the search screen, you will get only the full text in that one database and you will miss everything else. So if you see a full text box on the search screen of a database, never click in that. Do look for Scholarly or Peer Reviewed. And sometimes, depending on the database that you're in, this may not appear as an option until after you run your search. So let me just put in my sample search here. And we'll just get that one right there. And now I have 16 Scholarly journal articles that mention Greta Thunberg and Climate Change. I'm going to back up here and go to the home page. So remember that you can ask a librarian. You can contact us by email, text, and live chat. And we'll be happy to recommend the best database for your particular topic. Or go to choose a database and match the category to your class. If you don't have an exact match for your class, choose the articles section. And I'm going to show you, this is where we keep our library guides. These are written by the librarians here. And they cover a wide range of topics that will help you. Let's say that you have been given an assignment and your professor is insisting that you get quantitative research. And this is a new thing for you. You can put in a keyword search and find a library guide that will give you more information and examples of what quantitative research is. Let's say that you have an assignment for a literature review. You can find information on that as well. And many other topics. Those are just some samples. And back up. And the last thing I want to point out is our tutorials where you will find some further information and demonstrations. Just under our quick links box right there. And you have access to all our video tutorials. And then some of the more frequently used ones. The end. Thank you for watching and good luck with your research.