It’s Day 4 of the Arden Library Appvent Calendar – and behind our door today, we are pleased to introduce you to the Concept Map within the EBSCO main catalogue search!
As part of our new simplified and improved library search this year, the Concept Map feature was designed to make searching for resources more visual, accessible and modern.
When you search the main catalogue, you’ll find the Concept Map option at the bottom of your personalised dashboard on the left-hand side of the screen. Click on this to open a new tab and choose between a map layout or a grid layout.
You can then enter search terms and the Concept Map will help you start your research by selecting related words and considering links between ideas and concepts. Click on a word to see more about it and decide if it is useful to your topic. Then, select “explore concept” to see other ideas connected with this one.
You can add connected concepts (that you think are relevant to your research) into your search builder by clicking on the idea you want and choosing “add to search”. It will be added into the selected concepts box on the right-hand side of the screen. When you’ve selected all the concepts you want, click “See Full Results”, which will open a new window and search across our collections, or you can preview these results by clicking “content preview”:
We love this visual tool for thinking about your assignment or project topics and getting started with search terms – we hope you have fun exploring it too!
If you would like a walk-through and some tips around using the Concept Map, you can watch this video from EBSCO that showcases how to use it.
Happy searching!