beccablog, teacher-librarian

We recently launched Ebsco’s Integrated Search which is a type of federated searching that is affordable for us.

What do I like about it?

*Searches our sources from one spot – books and online

*Appears all on one page and since students are familiar with Ebsco, they are comfortable with the interace.

*Keywords – I will put this as a con too – but it really does make you work for a good search term.  This can be frustrating for students, but putting in a broad term will make the search “messy”.

*Subject terms – Ebsco provides additional subject terms in the sidebar.

*Once you do your search, you can then take out databases and search again.

What could be better?

*The title takes you to another page with an abstract inside Ebsco – but doesn’t take you directly to the article.  Students are confused by this extra step.

*Interace is very busy – but that is the Ebsco look.

*Book section

Will it compete with Google? No, but what actually can?  But I am always searching for a place that can provide great information that might capture student’s interest and impact how they do research.