Omni

Omni is our academic search tool. Search Omni for access to scholarly books, articles, and other material.

Filtering Results

So you have a whole lot of results from your search. Use the filters on the left side of your screen to narrow them down to what you can really use.

Select a filter to limit to items that apply, or de-select it to remove items that apply.

  • Apply a single filter by clicking on the filter type (text).
    • You can do this several times, to add filters as you go.
  • Apply multiple filters by clicking in the box to the left of the filter type (text).
    • Then click Apply filters at the bottom of the filter list.
  • De-select a filter by clicking the red "exclude" icon that pops up to the right of the filter type.

 

RECOMMENDATION:

Don't change the "Sort by" from Relevance.  This setting has brought your best results to the top of the list, and you don't want to mess with it. (But if you do change it, it's easy to change it back again!)

 

Types of Filters

Availability Filters

Screenshot of availability options

Available online shows only what you can access with a click - no need to enter the library at all.

Peer-Reviewed Journals displays only articles from verified peer-reviewed journals.

Open Access restricts your results to articles available to the public, without a Trent login.

Available in Trent Library displays only physical items in the library. 

 

 

Screenshot of library locations.

For physical items, you can look further down to see:
  • what's at each library (Bata or Durham)
  • AND what part of the library it's kept in.

Resource Type Filters

screenshot of resources type filter

Omni lists all the different types of resources it found with your search terms, along with the number of items.

Articles: journal, magazine, and trade journal articles - use the "Peer-Reviewed Journals" filter too, if you want only articles from peer-reviewed journals.

Books & eBooks

Other: things that don't fit in any of the other categories.

Text Resources: textual material that doesn't fit in any of the other categories, like reports or primary historical documents.

Reference Entries: dictionaries, encyclopedias, directories.

Book Chapters: chapters within ebooks.

Audio Visual: videos or sound files. Sometimes videos are also shown specifically as "Video".

Conference Proceedings: often only includes those available publicly online.

Web sites: Omni doesn't search public websites like Google does, but sometimes a website does pop up, generally because it doesn't know what else to call it and it's online.

Journals: May refer to a full journal that matches your search, or to a personal journal, such as a historical primary document. (This one is about prison life in 1750.)

Publication Date Filter

Screenshot of date filter.

Omni will default to every date available.  You can change it by typing in a new date, or using arrows.

Remember to click "Refine" to activate this filter.

Other Filters

Screenshot of other filters available.

There are other filters available as well:

Subject: limit to items that cover a specific subject.

Author/Creator: limit to items by a particular author.

Database: limit to items found in a specific database. (This may not be as helpful as you expect, since Omni isn't always searching a specific database.)

Journal Title: limit to articles within a specific journal.

Language: limit to items in a specific language. (Helpful to ensure you ONLY see English or French, since material isn't normally available in multiple languages.)

Remove Filters

screenshot of remove filters

Remove filters from the "Active filters" list at the top of the filters column.

All the filters you've applied are listed.

  • Remove them one at a time, but clicking on the them.
  • Remove them all at once, by clicking "reset".