Austin Library Catalog: Quick Search

When you do a Quick Search of the Austin Library Catalog, you are using the Encore Discovery search system from Innovative Interfaces.  Quick Search is a new, friendlier interface for searching Austin (the Felix G. Woodward Library catalog).

Quick Search acts more like a Web search featuring new ways to quickly and effectively narrow your results by keywords, library location, language, and date. It is ideal for searching a broad topic or creating a general list of library resources on a given topic.

Quick Search contains records from the Austin Library Catalog, but additional resources may be added at a later date.  For example, images from the Digital Library can be incorporated into search results.

Note: If you do an Author, Title, Subject, or Call Number search in the Catalog search box on the library homepage, you will be using the Advanced Search feature from the Austin library catalog rather than a Quick Search in the Encore system.

• On the left hand column of your results page you can use the Refine By: section to refine your results using different categories.
  • Availability is a quick way to limit items that have not been checked out or to Online versions.
  • Found In will show you only items where your search was found in the Author, Title, Subject or Community Tags.
  • Format allows you to find exactly the media you are looking for, such as Printed material, E-Resources, Films, and more.
  • Collection is an alphabetical listing of materials by collections, such as Reference Books, Learning Resource Center, and more.
  • Location groups materials by  the location of the materials within the library.
  • Language allows you to limit your results to a preferred language.
  • Publish Date allows you to select a year of publication.
• Place allows you to limit results to certain geographic regions. Note: not all items have place name information, so this method may miss some materials.
  
  
• The second way to refine your results is to use the "Refine By Tag:" option in the right column. The Tag Cloud is a collection of terms taken from predefined library subjects as well as terms generated by the library staff and our community of users. Click on a tag to further narrow your current search results. If you have an APSU ID number, you can create your own tags.

In Quick Search, click the Log In link in the upper right hand corner of the page to create custom lists of materials you want to keep track of for later use.

If you are looking specifically for online resources, simply limit your results by clicking the E Resources facet and browse your search results.  In addition to e-books, the results may also include non-book materials, such as websites, databases, and government documents.

In addition, if you unsure of format, the Available option allows you to limit to just Online works.

Once you have located an item you are interested in, click the linked text next to the orange arrow to open the e-resource itself in a new window or tab.

The requested material will be held for you at the Circulation Desk when the item is returned.  You will receive notification by e-mail. 

There are currently two ways to get to the Austin Library Catalog Advanced Search from within the Quick Search interface:

• Click on the "Advanced Search" link just above the search box at the top of the page.  This will open up a new window or tab and take you to the Austin Library Catalog Advanced Search page.
  
• On the detailed record for an item in Quick Search, click on the View in classic catalog link.  This will open up a new window or tab and take you to the classic Austin Library Catalog view of the same bibliographic record.  Click back in your browser to return to Quick Search.