Grace Library provides you with access to millions of books, articles, and videos that you can use for your research. Using the Library search box allows you to perform a search and pull results from the majority of our online databases, all within the space of our online catalog (called Discovery), and even filter out results by resource type, date of publication, and peer review status.
To get started, type your search terms into the box below.
On the Library's search box, you will see that there are multiple tabs across the top. These tabs allow you to limit your search results to the following categories:
We recommend starting your search with the "Everything" tab if you are new to a subject, and narrowing down your search results as you go.
If you are looking for resources on a subject, try a general keyword search. Keep your search brief at first, using your subject as your search term(s). If you know the title or author of the material you are looking for, you can enter those in as your search terms. When you are ready, click the "Submit" button to view the search results.
Once you perform your search, you will be taken to your search results.
Any time you see a "View full text" or "View eBook" button, you can click these buttons to immediately view the full text of the article. Please be aware that not all databases look and operate in the same way. Some may take you directly to the text, while others may take you to the article record, where you will have to click into the text itself.
Any time you see a green checkmark and the word "Available," this is a book that's available in physical format at Grace Library. To find any item in the library, all you need to know is the collection and call number.
When viewing search results, you may find that there are a lot to sort through—many of which you may not be interested in. To narrow down your search results, you may want to use the filters located on the left-hand side of the screen. It is possible to filter by format (articles, books, eBooks, etc.) or by years of publication. Another useful filter is "Peer Reviewed," which you can use when you only want to see academic or scholarly results for sourcing research papers.
Sometimes you may find that you must experiment with new keyword searches in order to get different or more relevant results. During your exploration of a topic, such as "information," you may find sources that prompt ideas for other search terms. Each time you search for your topic using different keywords, you will come up with a different list of results. A related term to search for "information" is "data," which may retrieve more or different results.
To get even more specific, you could try using phrases relevant to your topic. In this case, you could use phrases such as "information science" or "data analytics."
Try multiple searches and use all of the same tools—sorting, filtering, etc.—to find the best results.
One way to fine-tune your search is to utilize the Advanced Search function. Advanced Search lets you string together multiple search indexes, including author names, ISBN or ISSN, keywords, subjects, or titles. You can also utilize the "Operator" to expand or narrow down your search.
For example, you could compose a combined search for "William Shakespeare" using the Author search index AND "Macbeth" using the Title search index. Your results would show only items that are by William Shakespeare that include the work Macbeth.
Changing the operator to "NOT" would bring you results by William Shakespeare that do not include Macbeth.