Use the tips below to practice using 1Search, the search box on the upper right-hand corner of the library's homepage. Open up 1Search in another tab or browser (click here to open it) and try it out as you walk through this guide.

*Make sure to login to access more content and to use the saving features.*

What's included in 1Search?

• All the materials from the OSU Libraries catalog, such as books, videos, government documents, maps, sound recordings, music scores, etc.
• Scholarly journal articles, newspaper and magazine articles from over 62,000 sources. Much of this content is full-text.
• Resources from the OSU Libraries digital collections, such as OSU theses and dissertations in ScholarsArchive.

When should you use it?

• When you are starting your research
• When you have a multidisciplinary topic (animal behavior and ethics, or microbiology and animal health)
• When you want peer-reviewed articles as well as magazine articles, books, or newspaper articles

Learn more about 1Search on this guide.

Start by entering some keywords. Because 1Search searches so much stuff, you can try more targeted searches. The results of your search are displayed in the middle column. Options for refining your search are on the right side, for example, refine to just see Peer-Reviewed articles. Refining your search gives you the best results. Learn more about refining in the next module (below).

Because 1Search has so much content, you may find that your search results are very large and you’ll want to narrow down your search. You can do this in a number of ways including by resource type, topic and publication date. 

The options for refining your search are shown on the right side of the screen. Here's an example of how to refine by topic.

Looking at the list of topics shows you:

• what the main ideas are in your results,
• what language people are using to describe your topic,
• if you're on the right track.

When looking for articles, you will see that some articles are available immediately online from our library in full text. First, click on the article title or the full text available link.

Next, to open the article, choose the publisher's link (in this example - Elsevier ScienceDirect Journals Complete) that includes the right date range for the article you want.

You may need to get articles or books that our library doesn't have.

If you see results that say Request from Interlibrary Loan  (a grey or yellow circle will display), click the link to ask our librarians to get this article for you for free. 

You will receive an email from the Interlibrary Loan department when your article is ready. Click on the link in the email to access the article. It usually takes 1 business day at the most to get an article.

As you search, you have the option to email, save, and format your citations*. Click on the link, email, or pin icons, or choose the dots to see all of the saving and exporting options.

*Note - Double check the citation. 1Search is still learning how to make totally accurate citations and often has mistakes like missing volume numbers.