Public Services Librarian
Intro to OWU Resources
Ohio Wesleyan has a wide variety of resources intended to assist students with their research. However, these resources are predominantly English-language resources from a Western perspective. That said, if you are looking for books, academic articles, or other kinds of documents, this page will help you navigate OWU resources to better locate those resources.
Finding Books
CONSORT is our main tool to find books in OWU's system. That said, a basic search in CONSORT will yield predominantly English-language resources. In order to limit to books in a specific language, we will start by selecting the 'Modify Search' box above the search bar.
From there, a number of 'advanced search options' will open up within the 'Add Limits (Optional)' field. Sixth down, there is a language box. This controls the language of publication. Select one or more languages from this list to limit to only resources published in that language.
Because of this, you will typically see far fewer resources. That said, this is a quick and effective method to limit a search by language to find books, ebooks, and even journals focused on your desired topic.
Summon, the main 'Find All' box on OWU Library's homepage, is a much larger resource than CONSORT. Rather than focusing primarily on books, Summon searches a wide swath of resources touched by Ohio Wesleyan's various online and offline tools. Because of this, there are many more options to be aware of. When you do an initial search, for example, it will automatically exclude newspaper results. You can fix that simply by clicking the red 'X' next to newspapers. On the other hand, if you want to exclude specific types of resources, you can instead click the blue 'X', in the same place.
Once you've chosen what types of resources you'd like to include and exclude, you can adjust the language settings. To do so, look at the Search Bar at the top of the screen and select 'Options'.
This will open up some advanced search options. The third box beneath the expanded search bars should be "Languages." You can see that it defaults to "Any Type." Select one or more languages, and then click search at the bottom of the screen to finish your updated search.
Using OhioLINK, you can order books from almost any college and university in the state of Ohio completely for free. This is an incredibly valuable tool that gives you access to an enormous pool of information. That said, make sure you are giving yourself plenty of time for books to arrive. Remember, it takes 1-2 weeks for books to arrive in the winter, thanks to weather delays, so do your research in advance.
As with CONSORT, a basic OhioLINK search will return with books, most of which will be in English. To get to the options you need, select 'Modify Search', the second box above your search bar.
These advanced search options give you control over a variety of additional search criteria. Controlling the language of publication is the 'Language' menu, which is the first menu beneath the 'Add Limits (Optional)' bar. There, you can select one or more languages.
Simply select your language and finish your search. Now, all your results should be in the language you desire.
Using Databases
Databases are slightly more complex, as we have many different databases, each of which may place its advance search options in a different place. That said, by and large, the process for language-limiting in databases is the same basic function: Find the Advanced Search or Modify Search button, click it, and then look for the Language menu. Remember, different databases may also have different languages represented in them!
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