NORA Power Search Explained
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Below are search tips for using NORA Power Search. You will find additional information about searching in the Help. |
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You can simply enter your search terms straight into the NORA Power Search box and click ‘Find it fast’ to get results which you can then refine. However, you may want to use the following search techniques to make your search more specific from the start.
Use quotation marks to find specific phrases (words next to each other), e.g. “environmental education”.
Boolean search operators can be used within NORA Power Search. By default NORA will use AND to combine your search terms.
To expand the number of results you get use OR, e.g. dogs OR cats will give you results that contain either term.
To exclude terms from your results use NOT, e.g. dogs NOT cats in a search will ensure that your results do not contain the word cat.
Boolean operators should be capitalised.
NORA Power Search uses the truncation symbols ? and * , though they cannot be used as the first character of a search.
Use the question mark ? to match one character within a word, e.g. organi?ation.
Use the * with the stem of a word to match multiple variations of that stem, e.g. librar* will find library, libraries, librarian etc.
Once you have your results you may refine them further by using the options on the left-hand side of the screen.
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Limit results to those which have full-text online, those from scholarly publications (such as journals) and exclude newspaper material. |
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Choose particular types of material using this option. Click more options to display all the content types found for your search and to exclude those you do not want. |
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Refine your results further by subject. Click more options to see all the subject terms for your search, or to exclude those that do not interest you. | |
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Use the publication date slider to look at results from the dates that interest you (the bigger the bar the more results have been found in that year), or, if you prefer, you can add a specific date range to the boxes instead. | |
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Use the language option to restrict results to a particular language. |
E-mailing, printing and exporting search results
Use the ‘Save this item’ icon 
next to each record to save results to a temporary folder. Please be aware that the items will be cleared once you leave NORA Power Search. Once you have done this you can then click on ‘Saved items’ at the bottom of the screen to e-mail, print, or export your results into EndNote.
There is currently a problem with the display of multiple authors in exported citations, and they may not appear in the correct order. Until a solution to this issue has been found, you should check the order of the authors as they appear on the original article.
Saving your search as an RSS feed
Once you have completed your search you can continue to receive results for it via an RSS feed. You will receive an update whenever new content is added that matches your search criteria.
To do this right click the RSS symbol 
at the top right hand side of your results and then click ‘Copy Link Location’. This will have temporarily saved your search’s RSS feed URL. You can then go to your RSS feed reader and paste this into the add subscription option as you would normally.
Please note that in order to do this you will need to have set up an RSS reader account with a service such as Bloglines or Google Reader.
Advanced search enables you to specify which fields you would like to search, and can be used to specify results from certain authors, publications, or even particular volumes or issues of a journal. It is also possible to use Advanced Search to choose what content types appear in your results.
- How can I find a print journal, rather than articles from a journal using NORA Power Search?
Use Advanced Search and enter the title of the journal in the field “With these words in the title”, then select Journal from the “Show with this format” dropdown menu.
You can also search the Library catalogue directly if you prefer.
- How can I find the link to the whole electronic journal, rather the articles from the journal using NORA Power Search?
Use Advanced Search and enter the title of the journal in the field “With these words in the title”, then select ‘Web Resource” from the ‘Show with this format’ dropdown menu.
You can also search the Library catalogue (Link to new Prism) directly if you prefer.
- How can I rearrange results by date?
There is a dropdown box near the top right of the page where you can choose to arrange your results by date (newest to oldest, or oldest to newest) or by relevance. You can also restrict the timeframe of your results by using the Publication Date slider or boxes.
- What is “Add results beyond your library’s collection”?
This option, available in both basic and advanced searching, allows you to look at content from other libraries who use the same search service as NORA Power Search.
Please note that results found using this option may not be available to users from Northumbria University.
- How do I just search for print books using NORA Power Search?
You can narrow your search down to books by using the “Content Type” filter on the left, and ticking the box next to “Books”. You may also use Advanced Search to search only for books by selecting “Book” from the “Show with this format” dropdown menu.
You can also search the Library catalogue (Link to new Prism) directly if you prefer.
- Why do some of my results show “Check Availability”?
When an item shows “Check Availability”, NORA Power Search will redirect you to the Library catalogue to see how you might access the full text. If “Full Text Online” is shown is displayed in NORA Power Search, clicking on the link will take you straight to the resource.
- Can I preview the abstract for an item in my results?
Yes, if an abstract is available. If you hover your mouse over the item that you’d like to see more of, you can then click the magnifying glass icon at the top right. This will show you a short abstract, and details of the resource in which it can be found.
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