Making the most of Find It Virginia

First you have to find it. Click on www.finditva.org

On the front page choose "Highland County Public Library" from the drop-down box. Then enter your library card number on the next line. If you don't know your library card number you can call the library at 468-2373 or email me at mail@highlandlibrary.com.

The database I usually go to first is "Infotrac Onefile." It's a catch-all database. There are many good ways to search this database.

First, if you want to find as much as you can on a particular topic start with a "Basic Search." This will return results from all the publications they have in the database.

If you want to have more control over your search, choose "Advanced Search." With this search you can limit your search results to full text articles, and eliminate abstracts and citations, if those aren't helpful to you. You can also narrow down the timeframe for your search. You can narrow by Publication Title and other parameters, too.

If you are searching for an article in a particular publication, often the best way to search is by choosing "Publication Search." If you want to browse the magazine by issue, just type the publication title in the top box and search. Once you select your publication from their list it should show you a list of issues for the year. You can look at the drop-down box to see how many years are available. From the same page you can also do a subject search within that publication. You'll see the box for that to the left.

For example: I know that there was an article a while back in Popular Mechanics about stocking up survival gear in case of disaster. I'd like to see that article.

I choose "Publication Search."

In the top box I type in "Popular Mechanics" and click "Search." The search results show Popular Mechanics Magazine. I click on that.

It shows me a description of the magazine. If I hit the drop-down box I can see that they have issues all the way back to 1980. But I don't know which issue I need...

To the left there is a search box. I type in "survival." Then I'm given a list of Popular Mechanics articles relating to survival. I see that the fourth item down is just what I was looking for!

I can choose to look at the article in full text with pictures or in .pdf format. If I choose .pdf then I will see the article exactly as it was scanned from the magazine.

Find It Virginia is a valuable tool to both children and adults. Please take advantage of this wonderful resource being offered through the Library of Virginia and the Highland County Public Library.