VDOT OneSearch: Quick Start Guide: Search Tips

The strength of OneSearch — it's ability to search up to 25 databases at once — can also be its weakness. Here are some simple tips to harness the power of OneSearch without being overwhelmed with countless results. If you want to search all 25 databases, make no adjustment to the checked boxes.  Just remember, more is not always better!
 

Tip 1: Narrow By Category
If you know you want to limit your search to a specific category (you need Engineering Research, for example), then uncheck the other two categories, which would look like this: 

Believe it or not, by checking this single category you will be searching 16 different databases at once. That's a lot, but still more narrow than all 25.

Tip 2: Narrow By Database
Selecting the "+" symbol expands a category so that you can see all databases within that category, like this: 

In the example above we are limiting not only to the Engineering & Research category, but to 5 specific databases within that category...instead of searching all 16.

Tip 3: Narrow By Category and By Database
If we wanted to, we could also pick and choose any combination of databases from any combination of categories by simply unchecking boxes, to help create the perfect OneSearch search! That might look like this: