Temple University Libraries offer nearly 400 different research databases, everything from the highly used and well known ones such as Academic Source Premier and LexisNexis to some niche products such as Mediamark Reporter or Women Writers Online. For many students and faculty a comprehensive research process often requires more than one database, and for some of our users just choosing the right database can be challenging. It can be time consuming to run a literature search in each selected database, and each search system may use a different search interface. MultiSearch, a new way to search library databases, changes everything. MultiSearch is a collection of approximately 250 library databases, plus sources such as Google and Google Scholar. It allows library databases to be searched in any number of combinations, either those pre-determined by librarian subject specialists or those the searchers select themselves. The beauty of MultiSearch is that there is only one interface to use. You can now obtain results from multiple databases, all at once, with a single simple interface, and the search automatically deletes duplicate records. Starting a MultiSearch is easy. Either choose one or more search subject categories or design your own combination of databases:

Record results are displayed by default in a most recent to oldest order, and records from the different databases are interfiled. The results are also categorized in a number of ways: by subject content, by author, by database, and by journal. You can easily rearrange the results to meet your specific needs:

Please give MultiSearch a try. We think you’ll like it. But whatever your reaction is, we want to know. This is just our first version of MultiSearch – and we will use your feedback to guide our future customizations. Please share your reactions and suggestions by adding a comment to this post or use our library suggestion page. For more information see our “Introducing MultiSearch” page. And if you’ve got a better name for this thing than MultiSearch, we’d like to hear from you. (written by Steven Bell, Associate University Librarian)