ICE Virtual Library: Quick Start Guide: Searching

Simple searches can be performed from the search box at the top of any page in the system. The example below shows what happens when you use the single term "geosynthetics." The system reveals possible matches. To the right of each match the system shows if the item is an article, topic, journal, book or chapter:

Hovering over a suggestion reveals more information about it. Clicking on it takes you to the item record:

The full citation to the item, including an abstract, is displayed. Clicking on the "Open PDF" icon does just that: 

There is no way to filter out items that are NOT in VDOT's subscription, which includes almost all Books and Book Chapters. So be advised that books and book chapters suggested in quick search won't be available, but journals and articles typically will be. Topics may or may not be available. Your key for quickly finding full-text resources is to look for one of the icons shown below next to a title in the search results as an indication that full-text is available:

If an item shown in search results does not have one of these icons, the full text will not be available, as illustrated below:

Use the Advanced Search if you need to narrow down a large set of results into a small, more relevant set. In this example (below) we a search of three fields/terms: 1. key word in a title, and; 2. Author name in author field, and; 3. Another search term in the title field: 

Tip: Use the "+" symbol at the end of the last field to add another field, thus further narrowing your search.

Results of the search narrow down to a single article (with all 3 key terms highlighted):