AL 1010: Introduction to Higher Education

OneSearch is the Cal State LA Library's search and discovery tool you can use to find resources available in the library and across all CSUs. You can use OneSearch to search across many of the library databases for articles, books, videos, and other resources and catalogs for books and videos at the rest of 22 other CSUs.  It contains over 1 billion items including close to 30 million books from across all 23 CSU campuses.

It is a great tool to use when you are exploring a topic or have an exact title of an item in mind.

It is designed to be used by desktop and laptop computers, and mobile devices.

It has a built-in CSU+ Resource Sharing feature to allow you to receive the items that we don't have at the Cal State LA Library.

You can find the OneSearch Box on the Library Homepage.

The OneSearch box on the homepage is basic search.  You can click the Advanced Search button to the right of the basic search box to use the Advanced Search.

On the left-hand side of the main OneSearch box, you will see a drop-down box (pictured below). That box will allow you to choose the scope of your search. These five options are:

• Cal State LA Collections: This is a default option and you'll use most of the time. It searches everything owned and subscribed to by the Cal State LA Library, including books, articles, e-books, media (music and video), and more!
• Articles: Narrows your search to look only for journals, magazines, and newspaper articles available at Cal State LA.
• CSU Collections and Beyond: Broadens your search to look for books, DVDs, and other physical item NOT available at Cal State LA. This is a great scope to choose because as a member of the Cal State LA campus you are able to request materials we do not have from other universities across the country, including all 23 Cal State campuses.
• EBSCO Databases: Searches content covered by EBSCO databases.  You need to login to do the search. 
• Course Reserves: Narrows your search to only look for course reserves available in the library. You can search by course name, professor name, or book title.

Fill in the search box where it initially says "Search for Articles, media, books & more". Your search can be anything from the topic you are searching on to the author or title of a specific book. Click the magnifying glass to submit your search.

After your initial search has completed, look for a yellow box below the search bar that will prompt you to sign in. Signing in allows you to request items with Interlibrary Loan and CSU+, check physical item loan periods, pin articles to your account to view later, and more.

• Review your results. You can see how many results you initially have near the top of the results page (pictured in red box).
• Look on the left-hand side for options to filter your search (pictured in aqua boxes).
• Use the Sort By drop-down menu on the left-hand side if you want to sort by date, author or title (pictured in purple).

• Click on any title of an item to open up a page from the right.
• Online Articles, Videos, and Books: Look for "full text available at" for links to use to access the items. If there are multiple links, you can use any of the options to access it.
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• Print Books: Check the availability. If the item is available, you'll want the call number to find the item in the library. To the left of the call number, you'll also see what floor and side of the library the item is on.
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