Discovery Search: Looking for a ...?

A guide to using VT Libraries' Discovery Search.

Searching for Books, Articles, Journals, or Films

By default, Discovery Search will search for all item types. After you run your search, you can specify if you'd like Discovery Search to look only for certain item types: 

Search box with item type search circled 

Selecting books will include both physical books and ebooks; selecting articles will include all article types except newspapers; selecting journals will include the journals themselves, not the articles within them; and selecting video/film will include both streaming video and physical copies of films. 

Finding physical items

When you conduct a search in Discovery Search, the list of results will contain a mixture of item types: books, ebooks, journal articles, magazine articles, and much more. If you would like to find a physical book, first select "book" from the options below the search bar: 

search box with item type options circled

To find a print book, select a location under the "Library" limiter.

Library limiter

Finding newspaper articles

Newspaper results are automatically excluded from the search results. If you're looking for newspapers, Discovery Search offers a newspaper search option. After you've entered your search terms and come to the page of results, select "Newspapers search" under the Format option: 

Newspapers search option

You'll be taken to a new page of just newspaper articles. Use the options on the right to choose the publication date range, the subject, newspaper title, and more: 

Newspaper search results