Getting Started With Discover
When is it happening and why?
EBSCO, the company behind Discover and several of our other subscription databases, has developed a new user interface and will cease supporting the old version soon. Mount Holyoke library will be switching to the new interface on July 28 and this switch will include Discover and most of the other EBSCO databases that we subscribe to.
If you're a returning student, faculty, or staff member and are already familiar with Discover and our other EBSCO databases, read on! This page will help orient you to the new interface.
How will this affect me and do I need to do anything?
For most users, you don’t need to do anything! The functionality of Discover and the other EBSCO databases moving to the new user interface remains the same and you'll be able to do the same things.
However, if you use custom folders in our EBSCO databases, there are things you may want to do before July 28.
Items saved in custom folders will not carry over after the update to the new interface. If you want to avoid losing resources saved to these folders in your EBSCO account, please consult this guide to moving items out of custom folders or this video explaining the export process.
If you miss the July 28 cutoff, you'll still be able to download a report of the contents of your old folders which you can use to recreate them as projects (EBSCO's new name for folders) in the new user interface. Please consult these instructions for downloading the data from custom folders and these instructions for creating projects.
What's new?
New look
The new user interface puts some familiar tools in new places, sometimes with new names. Some notable examples in the screenshot of the new Discover interface below:
- MyEBSCO - Formerly called My Account
- My Dashboard - This always displays on the left side of the page. Contains everything you would have seen when you logged into the old interface and looked in My Account.
- Projects - The new name for Folders
- Filters - Filters are now accessed via these buttons at the top of the search page
- Advanced search - After running a search (as in the picture below) a Basic, one line search box will appear at the top of the page. If you wish to run a new search in the Advanced, multi-box form, click on Advanced search. Also, if you wish to run a search in a specific search field like Author, Title, or Subject, you'll need to do so in the Advanced search form.
- Tools - The Tools icon (three vertical dots) opens a menu with options to Cite, Add to project, Share, or Download an item. Previously you needed to click into the full record for an item where the Tools menu would appear on the right side of the page.
Search result changes
Book results now show:
- Loan type information that indicates how or if a book can be borrowed (for example, Standard loan means it can, Non-circulating means it has to be used in the library).
- +n more instead of Show More so you can see at a glance how many additional copies of book are available (12 in the example below)
Filters
See Refining your search with filters for more information about using filters in the new interface, but here is a quick summary of the few new and modified search filters.
New filters
- Print Books (Five Colleges) - Use to search for physical books in the Five Colleges, most of which Mount Holyoke users can borrow
- eBooks (Mount Holyoke access) - Use to search for eBooks Mount Holyoke users can access
Changes to existing filters
- Source Type - Formerly known as Format, use to filter for books, magazines, videos, etc.
- Content Provider - Formerly known as Databases/Collections
- Published Date - Custom range now requires a day and month as well as year
URLs and Permalinks
It's no longer necessary to hunt down Discover/EBSCO's Permalink feature to get a link for an item that will work even after your search session is over. In the new interface, when viewing the full record for an item you can just copy the URL/web address that appears in your web browser's address bar.
What about any old permalinks that you might be using in Moodle, Google Docs, or elsewhere? They should still work. EBSCO has said that they will automatically redirect to the new links for the correct items in their databases. However, going forward you may want to update links to any items that you wish to continue to work for the long term.