To improve your search experience and gain access to advanced features, always begin by clicking the Sign In button pictured below.
Once you have signed in to LibrarySearch you can:
Please note: LibrarySearch times out after 30 minutes of inactivity, automatically signing you out and resetting itself to the default search page.
Remote access to the University of Toronto Libraries' digital collections is only available to current students, faculty, and University staff. Access to e-books, full text articles, databases, and other digital tools require users to log in via the University of Toronto's web login service. If you forget this before you start your session, you will be directed to log in as soon as required.
To search for an exact article, search with quotations around your title phrase. See an article title search demonstration.
The advanced search option for articles allows you to use key words. By narrowing down your search results using the facets on the left hand side, you can find relevant articles. Also, if you know the specific details of the article you are looking for, such as volume, issue and/or title, this is where you can search for it.
It is likely that you will receive an overwhelming amount of results, but by selecting the appropriate search filters, format and subject options, you can narrow down your results.
Choose an appropriate database that pertains to the subject you are researching by selecting "Subjects A-Z". For example, if we select "Ecology" from this list, we see all of the relevant databases that contain relevant articles, such as Ecology Abstracts or Environmental Science & Pollution Management.This will also lead you to other resources such as encyclopedias and dictionaries.
This course focuses on conservation and management of tropical and subtropical forests. This provides you with a number of different search terms.
When searching for books, use the same method that you would for searching journal articles. Combine keywords using AND, OR, NOT.
Combine specific subject keywords with more general terms, such as "sustainable energy sources AND wind" in the library catalogue and then refine by publication type and year as seen below. Other subject keywords you may want to consider include:
Also, consider subject terms derived from your readings, lecture, and the syllabus.
Google Scholar searches scholarly articles, Google Books and quasi-scholarly material, harnessing the power of a Google search. Helpful for citation searching: it allows you to link to works that cite the articles in your results list (click on Cited by).
Note: don't pay for any articles! Go back to the library to get the full-text of your sources.
