Research Guides: ACES: Advanced Searching Options and Tips

Advanced Research Collections

HathiTrust Digital Library
NOTE: Download of full book PDF files may require login with University ID. A shared, growing digital repository of millions of books and periodical volumes scanned from major research libraries, including those digitized by institutional effort and by both Google and the Internet Archive. Offers full-text searching and advanced bibliographic search capabilities (such as author, title, publisher, language, etc.), and full PDF downloading of works in the public domain. One feature includes the ability to select and place items from the database into a tailor made collection that may be kept private to the user or shared publicly with others. Items that are saved to collections can be searched independently of the rest of the repository, allowing users to perform focused searches on subsets of HathiTrust materials.
Center for Research Libraries Catalog
CRL is a consortium of North American academic and independent research libraries. The consortium acquires and preserves newspapers, journals, documents, archives, and other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching and makes them available to member institutions through ILL. CRL holds over four million newspapers, journals, dissertations, archives, government publications, and other traditional and digital resources for research and teaching. Holdings include such diverse materials as 800,000 doctoral dissertations (including those of Albert Einstein, Dag Hammarskjold and other Nobel laureates); some of the earliest African-American newspapers; and the 100,000-plus-page archive of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge security force. Emphasis is on materials produced outside the United States, and the Center has special strength in publications and archives from many developing nations. These holdings are available for use by students, scholars and other researchers affiliated with CRL member institutions. For more information see https://www.crl.edu/?l1=5 All, although majority of materials emphasise early modern and modern periods.
Google Scholar
Google Scholar searches academic publishers, professional societies, pre-print archives, and university institutional repositories.

Campus Resources

IROC UMD
Integrated Research Resources on Campus, or "IRRoC," provides a unified, central access point to connect the University of Maryland (UMD) research community with resources and services across campus. This initiative aligns with the university’s strategic goal of building an infrastructure and academic support system essential to a world-class university, aiming to provide comprehensive resources for the complete research cycle.
Graduate Writing Center
Terrific resource. Can really help you excel in your work
Undergraduate Writing Center
As with skilled library use, utilizing the writing center can be the difference between a B and an A!

Tips & Tricks

Use the following tip and tricks within the UMD Libraries and in most commercial databases and search engines

*(asterisk) use an asterisk to tell the system to search all available suffixes
- EX: search librar* to search libraries, library, librarians, etc.
Search for a known title "using quotation marks." This can also be used if you want to search a "compound phrase." This will tell the computer to search for the words in the exact order you're telling it to and will keep it from searching for any combination of the words. Will help you target and clarify your search.
- EX: "The Logic of Practice" or "social philosophy"
Use the following 2 letter combinations to more effectively search from the main search bar in UMD Discover (be sure there is no space after the colon, ex. TI:outline of a theory of practice)
- TI:title search
- SU:subject search
- KW:keyword search
- AU:author search
Remember the difference between SUBJECTS (specialized vocabulary, system defined, and taxonomic) and KEYWORDS (author/publisher defined, more like ‘tags’ in social media).
Using AND to combine concepts (Students AND test anxiety), OR to broaden the scope of your search (Students OR Adolescents), and NOT to limit your search (Students NOT K-12) will help sort through a lot of the results and help narrow what you find. Be careful, however, as you can be too specific and miss important materials.
Remember to use the database limiters to help refine your search
Think about what you’re looking for and search in the appropriate location (journals = databases, books= UMD Discover/UBorrow).
Make sure to use the appropriate search option (author name, title, keyword, subject, etc.) when searching.
Check your Research Guides for additional help and don’t hesitate to ask a librarian!