Answered By: James Spring (McK)
Last Updated: Jul 26, 2022     Views: 602

Hello,

WorldCat UMD, by default, searches:

  1. WorldCat itself. WorldCat is a shared catalog of holdings of worldwide libraries. A lot of the items in WorldCat are books, recordings, videos, and journal titles.
  2. A collection of additional databases, many of which provide article citations and can be searched individually through Database Finder. Examples of well-known databases that WorldCat UMD searches automatically are: Academic Search Premier, JSTOR, PubMed, ERIC, and ScienceDirect. There are many, many more as well. 

Collectively, the databases searched by default are known as "WorldCat.org." This is what users search when they perform a Basic Search.

In Advanced Search, users can add even more databases to their searches. They can also remove databases to search a smaller set, or even a specific database.

 

 

For example, to search a music topic you might deselect WorldCat.org and add RILM, Music Index, Academic Search Premier.

Users can add or subtract as many databases as they like. They should be aware, though, that some database searches are slower than others, which might slow down the speed of the search a bit.

In addition, users might have a more precise and powerful search experience by using databases in their native interface that they can access via the Databases tab located under the search box on the Libraries' homepage or via subject categories via Research Guides also located under the search box.

 

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