CREDOreference

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• Tired of chasing cross-references through paper volumes?

• Know different reference books will give you different perspectives, but it's too difficult and slow to search them all?

• Wondering which of your Google results is authoritative?

CREDOreference is a giant online reference library that provides you with convenient access to 250+ reference books coming from many respected publishers (eg. Penguin, Macmillan) with guaranteed quality. CREDOreference includes encyclopaedias, dictionaries, thesauri, Who's Who, Who was Who and books of quotations, not to mention a range of subject-specific titles covering everything from art to accountancy and from literature to law that can all be searched at once.

List of titles found on CREDOreference

The xreferencing system means cross-references can be automatically linked across the whole library and not just within one volume.

Simple search

Simple search will search by keyword, topic or in specific resources. To search the whole collection by keyword, simply enter a term in the search box. Alternatively:

• select one topic area from an extensive list on the Home page or from the topic bar
• select a topic to display the list of resources used for that topic
• check the box next to the title you wish to search
• enter the keywords you wish to find
• click the 'search' button

If you are reading an entry from a particular title, you can search within the title by selecting the title's radio button in the search bar. Entering keywords into the search box and clicking 'search' will restrict the search appropriately.

Advanced search

Advanced search has a more detailed search screen which:

• enables you to combine concepts using Boolean logic
• assists with searching for alternative terms or phrases using 'sounds like'
• restrict your search to headings, potentially increasing relevance
• allows you to select one or more topic areas
• permits you to make selections about the format of material you require and have the most relevant material listed first in the results

Tips

To exclude a word from a search, simply prefix the word that you don't want to appear with a minus symbol.
eg. Darwin -evolution will return entries that contain Darwin but don't mention evolution.

To restrict searches to entry headings so as to eliminate material which mentions your search topic but is primarily not about it, add h: before a search term.
eg. h:Mars will return only entries with Mars in the heading.

To check spelling, take your best guess and prefix the word with a tilde (~). This will then search for close matches.
eg. ~psycologist will return results for psychologist.

To find an exact phrase, place double quotation marks around your search terms.

For wildcard searching, use an asterisk (*) within your keywords to truncate terms to the left, the right or within terms.
eg. searching for *ology will return a list of words that end in 'ology'
      searching for car* will return a list of words that begin with 'car'
      searching for so*ism will return all words that start with 'so' and end in 'ism'

Results

Results are ranked by relevancy to your inquiry. Remember there may still be valuable entries further down the list. The order can be altered by selecting 'prefer longer results', 'Prefer results with images' or 'Prefer results with audio'. These are only preferences and other relevant entries are still listed.

Each result entry displays:

• a heading and an entry extract to assist you to judge which entries to open up to view
• information on the source of the entry
• a list of live cross references
• sample citations in three popular formats

Concept mapping function

The Concept map provides a visual map of how search terms and topics in CREDOreference are interconnected. It leads you to related areas that are worth further exploration.

How does it work?

• When a keyword is entered into the search box and 'concept map' is selected, a web is created which subdivides and expands as the program searches across the 150+ resources available
• Each research result (represented by dark pink dots) contains your search term
• The Concept map then explores all the xreferences within these articles and displays them as related results (a pale mauve cluster around the original entry)
• When your mouse runs over a result cluster, a cloud of labels develops and the active item is clearly indicated in yellow along with the reference source
• Click on an active item and you will be taken to the relevant entry
• All cross references are listed on the left-hand side of the page to make recording easier
• If there are too many or too few results, you can control the number of concepts by selecting from the dropdown box to the right of the search box
• There are keyboard shortcuts to aid in viewing the results eg. the shift key allows you to zoom into specific areas and see inter-relationships more clearly. Move the mouse over the reference mapper key to display the extended key

Tip: this mapping feature is very powerful and is worth a little practice. A useful term to test out this feature is outlaws. Most of the features of the Outlaws exhibition come up with some surprising new ones. It demonstrates the breadth and depth of topics that can be revealed as linked.

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