Research Tools 
WebFeat Tutorial

WebFeat is a multiple databases search engine. It includes fifty of the most popular and complete online databases. Articles, books, audio and video recordings can be found with WebFeat.
Click here to download a printable pdf file of the WebFeat Tutorial.

How do I search with WebFeat?

There are three areas on the Pendergraft Library WebFeat home page: Enter search criteria, Select Category, and List of resources. You must first complete the "Enter search criteria" area.

If your criterion is a phrase, put it in quotes. If you are looking for an article, you may select Full-text articles only, Peer-reviewed articles only or both. There are two possible ways to search with WebFeat:
Select Category
In the Select Category area, select a least one category. The selected category (or categories) will select OCLC WorldCat (the OCLC Online Union Catalog) and the Pendergraft Library catalog by default. It will also select one or more databases from the "List of resources" area. Scroll down to view the selected databases. You can also add other databases from the "List of resources" to the ones automatically selected by a category. Once your selection is done, click Search.

List of resources
The "List of resources" lists all the available databases used with WebFeat. You may select one or more particular databases. This search will not include OCLC WorldCat (the OCLC Online Union Catalog) or the Pendergraft Library catalog unless you select them in the list. Once your selection is done, click Search.

Pendergraft Library WebFeat results page


There are four areas on the Pendergraft Library WebFeat results page:
1 You searched
This area lists the terms entered in the "Enter search criteria" area from the WebFeat home page. It also includes three links and the Results display mode.

The three links are: Print Results, Save Results, and Email Results.
Print Results:
The selected citations may be printed in a rich text format. A message appears if no citation has been selected.
Save Results:
The selected citations may be saved. This link will prompt you to a dialog box asking the format in which the citations would be saved.
Email Results:
The selected citations may be emailed. This link will prompt you to a dialog box in which some information has to be input before the email can be sent. It does not transit through your personal email account and will be sent to the address that you provide.

The Results display mode, located just above the citations listing, is by default Grouped. There are other display modes that might refine the search:
Grouped
This display mode shows all articles, books, and other media found in the databases on the basis of the words entered in the search criteria area. The Hits and Database shows the databases as links, allowing to view the first ten results found in the database. For more detailed information about a citation, click the View button.
Relevancy-ranked
This display mode selects the articles with the best relevancy to the terms entered in the Enter search criteria box. The Hits and Database box does not allow linking to any of the databases since the results are a mix of the most relevant results from all searched databases.
Sorted by title
This display mode selects the titles with the best relevancy to the terms entered in the Enter search criteria box. The Hits and Database box does not allow linking to any of the databases since the results are a mix of the most relevant results from all searched databases. The results found in this display mode might slightly differ from the results found in the Relevancy-ranked display mode.
Sorted by author
This display mode presents the same results as in the Sorted by title display mode. The authors are listed by alphabetical order. The Hits and Database box does not allow linking to any of the databases since the results are a mix of the most relevant results from all searched databases.
Sorted by date
This display mode presents the same results as in the Sorted by title display mode. The articles are ordered by most recent dates. The Hits and Database box does not allow linking to any of the databases since the results are a mix of the most relevant results from all searched databases.
Selection only
This display mode shows all the selected articles if any has been selected in any of the previous display modes. The Hits and Database box does not allow linking to any of the databases since the results are a mix of the most relevant results from all searched databases.
Clustered

This display mode presents the same results as in the Sorted by title display mode. The Hits and Database box is replaced by a Results by Topic box. In this box, the results from the citations listing are regrouped by topics to narrow down the results. They can still be further narrowed by clicking on one of the topics: the citations listing will then limit the amount of citations to the number written next to the topic.

2 Citations listing
In all Display results modes except Clustered (see above), the listing is made of as many sections as the number of databases that have been searched. The order the databases appear in the citations listing is the same as in the Hits and Database box. The name of the database appears in bold and is followed by a first set of ten citations. A button allows to view the next set of citations. The next section of the listing will present the second database listed in the Hits and Database box and its first set of ten citations, etc.

3 Quick Search box
This box can be used for new search, only one category may be selected. If you wish to chose more than one category or one or more specific databases, you need to click on Advanced search, which is the Pendergraft Library WebFeat home page.


The Find related terms searches through the WebFeat Thesaurus and retrieves a list of terms related to the single word entered in the Enter search term text box.

4 Hits and Database box
The Hits and Database box lists all the databases searched and the number of hits in each database. The order the databases appear is the same as the order the databases appear in the citations listing area. This box might change its appearance depending on the chosen Display results mode (see no. 1.)