Communications

When you have done your search, don’t forget to use the limiters. The main ones are:

1. By default, Find It searches all terms you have entered, without the need to use AND.  For example: children television violence will find items that contain all 3 terms.
    
2. By default, Find It searches through the full text of documents (if available).  This may cause a large number of results, and not all are relevant to your subject.  Results are returned in a relevancy ranked order. You can change the ranking to date if you wish.
    
3. To improve the relevancy of your search results, enclose phrases in "quotation marks".  For example:  "British Columbia" or "global warming".
    
4. Include the apostrophe.  For example, use "handmaid's tale" rather than "handmaids tale"
    
5. To find variant endings for a word, use the * asterisk (truncation symbol.)  For example:  delinquen* finds delinquent, delinquents, delinquency
    
6. To find books, e-books. videos or other items in the UFV library, refine your search by selecting "All Books".  You can also limit to "Print books Only" if you want something to hold!
    
7. To find scholarly journal articles, refine your search by selecting "Scholarly (Peer Reviewed)"
    
8. You can refine a search by limiting to Language. However, be aware that many English language articles have not been tagged as English, so will be missing from your search results.
    
9. Many items have direct links to retrieve the full text. For those that don't, use "Full Text Finder" to determine if UFV has the item in print or online.
    
10. To limit to Canadian content, use the Geography filter.

Custom made UFV tutorials:

Tutorials from the service provider:

Some useful strategies for successfully finding books in the UFV library:

1. Start with a simple search of one or two keywords; once you find a book that looks relevant:

   

   Then look at the subject terms:

   

    

   • click on the Title;

2. These links will lead you to similar subject titles.

3. Look for call numbers in your search results that repeat - these can lead you to good areas to browse for books (you might find hidden gems by examining the tables of contents or index).
4. Remember to look under access options to see if the book is availabe online and use the tools option (the three dots) to email or cite the book.

When searching for items with the library catalogue:

• Don’t search by using a sentence. Instead, identify the main concepts related to your research question.
• If you don't get any results think of synonyms or other words that describe your topic
• Truncation: searches for variant endings. Use $ in the UFV library catalog. (communicat$ will find: communicating, communications, communicates)
• Use AND to combine separate concepts (intercultural AND intergenerational communicat$)
• use OR to combine different concepts, either of which are acceptable (workplace or work environment or office) and (communicat$ or report writing)

In order to find a book on the shelf, you need a call number and the location. Here’s an example: HF 5718 M49 2017 Stacks

Once you have a call number, you can browse that section of the shelves for more on the same subject.

 “E-books” are available electronically, no call number needed. Just click on "Access Options" and choose the e-version you want or click on "read online."

"Just Received” items are not available but you can place a hold on them to get them quickly.

“On Order” items are in the process of being purchased. This can take a long time so look for something else.

You can also request books from other campuses as well as place holds on books that are checked out.