Irving S. Gilmore Music Library

Quicksearch: A New Way to Browse Collections

discover library resources with a single search: search.library.yale.edu
February 22, 2016

The new Quicksearch tool – now permanently located on the university library's home page – unites several Yale Library resources under one search interface, including Orbis, the main Library catalog, and Morris, the Law Library catalog.

Quicksearch can facilitate the browsing of scores and recordings in a way that is not possible in Orbis. Traditional Orbis is still available for those who prefer to search that way. Quicksearch uses different relevancy algorithm than Orbis, but with the addition of a few symbols, you can still perform a precise search for scores or recordings in Quicksearch. A page has been added to the Music Library's Music Research - Quicksearch subject guide to show how you might search for scores or recordings in Quicksearch.

Once you have entered a search in Quicksearch, click on Books+ or Articles+ on the left in order to see options for limiting your search through terms known as Facets.  

The catalogs contain over 11.5 million books, pamphlets, scores, recordings, videorecordingsmicroforms, printed journals and other materials, and are united in the Books+ search in Quicksearch. The Articles+ search in Quicksearch will help you find online journal articles, online newspaper articles, online dissertations, as well as other electronic resources licensed by the library. A single keyword search in Quicksearch will return results from both Books+ and Articles+; more sources will be added in the future.

With Quicksearch, you can also:

  • Build and share lists of print and online resources from Books+ and Articles+ using the Saved Lists feature.
  • Request an item to be delivered to a library near you.
  • Request a scan of the item.
  • Build an RSS feed out of your search.
  • Exclude records from your search.
  • Search newly acquired material (up to 1 year).
  • Export citations.

See the Quicksearch documentation site for more information on searching- plus a few introductory videos!