Tutorials Home - Tutorials for Online Resources - Research Guides at Philadelphia University

Tutorials for Online Resources and Online Searching

This page contains links to vendor tutorials for several of our multidisciplinary online resources, including EBSCO, EBooks on EBSCO, ProQuest, NewsBank, Lexis Nexis and Credo Reference.

Also included are tutorials for our Online Catalog and for finding books in WorldCAT Local.

Refworks is a tool to help you organize and and keep track of the information you locate from our resources.

Please click the tabs above to see additional tutorials for subject-specific resources.

PhilaU Research Tutorial

Research Tutorial

Empower is a good general tutorial on conducting research--it is especially helpful for students new to college-level research.

Tutorials for the Online Catalog

Tutorials to help you use the online catalog

General Keyword Searching and Subject Browse Searching
Reserve Book Room
My List
My Account

EBSCO Databases

For more help with any of these resources, please contact your Liaison Librarian or Jordana Shane.

EBSCO databases include: Academic Search Premier, Business Source Premier, Regional Business News, America: History & Life, Historical Abstracts, Textile Technology Index, World Textile Abstracts, Garden, Landscape & Horticulture Index, SocIndex, Environment Complete, GreenFile.

What's New at EBSCO!
E-books (NetLibrary), iPhone applications
Advanced Searching in EBSCO Databases
Results List: Working with Your Search Results
Detailed help on how to navigate and refine your search results. Please note: the volume on this tutorial is low
Reading an Article
Options available to you when viewing an individual article from your results list
My EBSCOhost Folder
Set up a free folder to Save and organize your EBSCO database research, save searches and set up search alerts and new Table of Content Alerts, for new issues of your favorite publications in EBSCO
Using Your Search History
Use your My EBSCOhost folder to help you re-use your Search History
Complete List of EBSCO Tutorials

E-Books on EBSCO: NetLibrary e-Books are now part of EBSCO!

For more help with any of these resources, please contact your Liaison Librarian
or Jordana Shane.

E-Books on EBSCOhost tutorial
How to search for and view EBSCO e-books. PLEASE NOTE: we do NOT have the capability to download e-books, as described in the tutorial
E-Books on EBSCOhost User Guide (WORD document)

ProQuest Databases

For more help with any of these resources, please contact your Liaison Librarian or Jordana Shane.

ProQuest databases include special coverage of Business, Psychology, Health Sciences, Newspapers, and general coverage of Humanities and Social Sciences, for College Studies and Liberal Arts courses.

Databases include the ProQuest Research Library, ProQuest Newspapers, Historical New York Times, ABI/Inform Global, Trade & Industy and Dateline databases, Health & Medical Complete, and more

ProQuest Basic Search
ProQuest Advanced Search
A sample Advanced Search using the ABI/INFORM database
ProQuest: Publication Search
Search for publication titles in ProQuest
ProQuest: Look Up a Citation
Look up citations in ProQuest using the information you have.
ProQuest: Add Items to Refworks via Direct Export
First--Create a My Research account in ProQuest, and select to link your existing Refworks account to My Research
ProQuest: When Direct Export Fails
Added May 10 2012: there is sometimes a problem related to the proxy server that can interfere with directly exporting to RefWorks as described above. This tutorial provides instructions on how to use an alternative export format (RIS).
ProQuest: My Research
Create a personal My Research account within ProQuest, so you can manage your search results by creating folders, link to your RefWorks account, and more.
Proquest: Create Folders
First--Create a My Research account in ProQuest. Then, create folders to organize the items you find.
ProQuest: Tags
First--Create a My Research account. Then, you can tag items you have saved in your My Research account, and find them more easily later!
ProQuest: Create a Search Alert
Be sure to create a My Research Account in PQ before creating any alerts! This tutorial shows you how to set up a Search Alert that is sent to your Email account
ProQuest: Manage Your Alerts
Create a My Research Account in PQ before creating alerts, so that you can manage them more easily.
ProQuest: Quick Start Guide pdf
ProQuest: Full User Guide pdf
This is a longer version of the Quick Start Guide.
ProQuest New Platform Demo: Overview of New PQ Interface
Mouse over the links in the text in the left frame, and use the navigation links at the bottom of the left frame

NewsBank (Access World News)

For more help with any of these resources, please contact your
Liaison Librarian or Jordana Shane.

NewsBank Tutorial
Once the file downloads, view it in Presentation mode. It will run automatically. Please note: there is no sound.

Lexis / Nexis

For more help with any of these resources, please contact your
Liaison Librarian or Jordana Shane

Lexis Nexis Tutorials: Main Menu
Choose from all four Lexis/Nexis Tutorials: Overview, Selecting Sources, Working With Results, Caselaw Summaries and Headnotes, or use the links below.
Overview: Lexis Nexis Tutorial
Selecting Sources: Lexis Nexis Tutorial
Working With Results: Lexis Nexis Tutorial
Caselaw Summaries and Headnotes

RefWorks

For more help with RefWorks, please contact Stan Gorski or Karen Albert

WorldCAT Local

PhilaU WorldCAT Local searches Books, Articles and more. The tutorials below demonstrate searching for BOOKS only.

Search WorldCAT Local
This group of tutorials shows a Basic Search, how to refine your search by limiting your results by author, book (format), and more.
Advanced Searching in WorldCAT Local
This set of tutorials shows the various features of Advanced Searches

Credo Reference

These videos will help you use Credo Reference, a collection of reference books such as subject specific dictionaries and encyclopedias, =foreign language dictionaries, and more.