Understanding Your CrossSearch/QuickSearch Results

When you conduct a QuickSearch or CrossSearch, you are using the tool to searching a group of resources at once. CrossSearch can take a few minutes, so a status screen (such as in the image below), will appear to indicate the status of your search in each of the databases and how many hits you are receiving for each resource.

After completing your search, you will retrieve a list of results. Results are ranked by relevance, but you can change this setting near the top of the screen to sort by author, title, date, or database.

CrossSearch does not provide all of the information about the article. It displays the title of the article, its author, and the date of publication (if available). In some cases, you may be able to read the actual full-text directly from the CrossSearch results screen. However, since the full-text contained within cross search is usually HTML without any graphics or charts, we strongly recommend that you instead use the Find It! button to locate the full-text or conduct a catalog search for the item in print.

Making the Most of CrossSearch

CrossSearch can be a efficient way of finding articles on a topic. However, the CrossSearch interface does not provide the search features available in the actual database interface. As a result, if you see that you are getting many hits from one database, it may be in your interest to try your search again within that database--using many of the advanced search features available in the native interface.