MetaSearch or Power Search : Using QuickSets and Categories

The real advantage to using MetaLib is its ability to combine several different electronic resources and allow you to search them all together, in one easy step. You can do this on the initial search screen by choosing one of the QuickSets offered in either the Simple or Advanced search mode. But there is a third option, called either MetaSearch or Power Search, that provides all of the capabilities of the other screens, plus more.

To get to this screen, choose MetaSearch from the welcome menu, or Power Search from the menu bar :

The new screen offers you a choice of the Simple and Advanced search modes. But it also provides a column on the left side of the screen, headed Identify database.

When you first see this column, it presents a list of the same QuickSets you have seen before : our own Morton Library catalog, a set of religion databases, and so on. You can choose one of these and perform a search in that QuickSet. But you also have the option of choosing particular databases from the set, if you want to search some of them, but not all.

Suppose you are trying to search the catalogs of some of the member institutions of the Richmond Academic Libraries Consortium, but you don't want all of them. You can click the small square beside each one that you do want to search : for example, the Library of Virginia, UR and VCU. Then, when you
enter your search term in the box and click the Go button, MetaLib will search the catalogs you have chosen.

The Power Search screen offers another option -- using Categories. Click on the small drop-down menu below the words Identify database, and then choose the word Categories.

You find that the column now contains two windows, marked Category and Sub Categories. These are sets of databases, similar to the QuickSets you have already seen. But they allow for greater discrimination by subject area and wider variety. We are still developing these categories, adding databases to them, and building up their subcategories. We hope to use them to bring out some little-used databases, indexes and gateway sites and make them more visible and accessible to researchers.

For an example of how they work, choose Social Science from the small drop-down menu below the word Category. When you do this, several choices fill in the window under Sub Categories. Click on one of them -- for instance, Psychology, sociology and anthropology.

Click in the tiny boxes to choose as many of these resources as you wish to search at one time. (If you click on one of the symbols that looks like a lower-case letter ''i" inside a small circle, a box will open giving you a description of that database and explaining why you might choose to use it.) Then, enter your search term in the box and click the Go button. MetaLib will search the databases or other resources you have chosen.

It's also possible to customize the PowerSearch process to suit your own patterns or habits of researching. See Make your own QuickSets for further guidance.