There are many features available to you in Primo, and you can access a number of them via the Navigation Bar at the top of every page. If browsing on a mobile device, you can access these features via the Main Menu. Click the links on the left side of this page - or at the top of this page, if you are using a mobile device - to see more about each feature!
Your library may have some of these features available, and they may have some features in the Navigation Bar or Main Menu that are not mentioned in this guide. Go ahead and click on those links to find out more - or ask your library staff for help!
On a PC, the navigation bar is across the top of every page. Access the main menu by clicking the "Menu" text in the top right-hand corner of any page.
On a mobile device, click or tap the ellipses in the top right-hand corner to access the Main Menu and Navigation Menu. You'll then see a list of the Main Menu options, followed by a list of the Navigation Menu options on a mobile device.
If you're looking to browse the library's shelves from your device, use the Browse Search function in the main menu or navigation bar. At your institution, it might be called "Browse Books", just "Browse", or something similar. When you click on the "Browse Search" button, you'll be taken to the Browse Search landing page, with the "Browse by" search box at the top of the page.
There are a number of ways to use the Browse Search function. You can search by four different elements, listed below. Click or tap on each element to expand it and learn more.
If you know the title of the book you're looking for, simply select "Browse by Title" from the yellow drop-down box, and type the title in the search box. Then, press enter or click the magnifying glass icon to submit your search. A list of books will appear that contain your search term(s); click on one to view a brief result of it on the next page with a bit more detail. Then, if you'd like more information, click that brief result to view information such as how to access the book, the author and publication date, availability, and other information. See the Basic Search and Viewing Item Details sections of this guide for more information on those views of a search result.
Use this element to search by an author of your choice. Be sure to format your search as "Last name, First Name", otherwise you will get inaccurate results.
Once you submit your (correctly formatted) search terms, you'll be presented with a list of authors. You may see the author you are searching for more than one time in this list. On the right side of each result, you'll see a number of titles with that person as the author, from "1 record" (1 title) to "20 + records" (more than 20 titles). Usually, a result with more records/titles will be more accurate than one with only 1 or 2 records/titles. Click the author's name to be taken to a list of that author's works, and page through as you would in any other Basic Search.
With the Subject browse search option, you can search by the subject of the title. For example, if we wanted to search not for titles authored by Jane Austen, but about Jane Austen, we could search "Austen, Jane" in the Subjects browse search. Then, clicking on the result that most fits what we're looking for, we'll see a list of titles with a subject of Jane Austen.
We can also search for a subject of study, such as "Nursing" or "Biology".
See the Viewing Item Details section of this guide for more information on viewing the Subjects associated with a particular title.
If you know the Library of Congress class of the subject you'd like to browse in, you can choose the option to search by call number. Type the class into the search bar, and either click the magnifying glass icon or press enter on your keyboard to submit your search. For example, the subject area "Biological Sciences - Ecology" corresponds to the class "QH581". If we type "QH581" into the Call Number search, we will get results with call numbers that start with "QH581" and therefore are about "Biological Sciences - Ecology".
For more information about common Library of Congress classes, ask your library's staff for help!
If you know the name of a journal or publication you'd like to search in, the "Journal Search" can be a great option! It can also be used to find journals related to a particular subject if you're unsure of which journals to search within. To access it, in the navigation bar or main menu, click on "Journal Search". You'll be taken to the Journal Search landing page.
Enter your search term(s) in the search box, then click the magnifying glass icon on the right-hand side of the search box to perform your search. As you type, you'll be prompted with different options to auto-complete your search term(s).
Or, use the list of Journals by Category on the left-hand side of the page to search by category or subject. This list includes the categories or subjects of all print and electronic journals that your library has access to, in alphabetical order.
Once you find a search result you're interested in, click anywhere on that result to view more details like its availability, how to access it, and more.
See the Basic Search and Viewing Item Details sections of this guide for a breakdown of the details available.
In the main menu or navigation bar, you may see links specific to your institution. The most common of these include a link to a list of all the databases and electronic resources your library has access to. This is commonly referred to as an "A-Z page", because of the "A-Z" navigation at the top of the page. Your institution might call the link "A-Z Databases", or "All Databases", or something similar.
At Winthrop University's Dacus Library, their link is labeled "Database List".
Every institution is slightly different, but you can see the alphabetical navigation on Winthrop's A-Z page circled in red below. Note the drop-down boxes for filtering by subject, database type, and vendor/provider above the alphabetical navigation, as well as the "Popular Databases" sidebar on the right-hand side of the page.
There may be other links specific to your institution in the navigation or main menu as well, like a librarian chat link or a link to all of your library's research guides. Click on each one to find out more, or ask your library staff about them for more information!
Looking for a specific article or journal? If you have any citation information, such as the ISSN or DOI, you can use the Citation Linker feature to search for it. At PTC, to find "Search by Citation," click on the menu button with 3 dots on the right of navigation menu.
Enter in any information you have about what you are looking for - especially a Title, ISSN, DOI, or PMID - and click submit in bottom right corner of the form. The more information you can provide, the better!
Your librarians may have curated collections available for you to browse, right in the catalog! Click on the button in the main menu/navigation bar titled "Collection Discovery" to view the top-level collections your institution has curated.
On the Collection Discovery landing page, mouse over each collection tile to view a short description of the collection. Click a tile to be taken to that collection.
When viewing a collection, you can click on any item to view the item's details. See the Viewing Item Details section of this guide for more information about the information you can find when clicking on an item.
You can sort the items in the collection by Title (A-Z), Author (A-Z), Date-newest, Date-oldest, and Relevance. You can search within the collection using the Search box at the top of the page.
