OneSearch contains records from a very large number of sources. But how it maps onto the databases is complicated. The product behind OneSearch, Primo VE, is known as a discovery layer. While most or our databases host content such as full-text articles, videos, images and so on, OneSearch collects records from all sorts of different places and directs end-users to the full resource on some other platform.

Whether or not OneSearch will show you everything you could find in another database depends upon whether it has the same records. Whether it has those records depends largely on the relationship Primo VE's vendor, Ex Libris, has with other database vendors.

Journal Databases

Good coverage

With some databases, we can expect that the records pointing to all content to which Sacramento City College has access can be found in OneSearch results. Examples of these databases include

• JSTOR
• Ovid Journals
• Sage Journals
• ScienceDirect
• Wiley Online Library

These databases primarily hold academic journal articles and have direct relationships with the vendor that supplies OneSearch, Ex Libris. However, even with these databases, there might be gaps, since as content changes in those databases, it might take a little time for OneSearch to catch up.

Less-good coverage

Other database vendors do not supply much information to Ex Libris, so a good chunk of their content will be missing from OneSearch results. The most prominent example of such a vendor is EBSCO, which provides Academic Search Complete and several other highly used databases. EBSCO and Ex Libris are corporate competitors, and EBSCO has declined to provide Ex LIbris with much metadata. OneSearch will show article records for journals held in EBSCO databases if it has those records from some other provider, and will include a link to the article on EBSCO's platform. But if it doesn't have records for some journals found in EBSCO databases, articles from those journals won't turn up in OneSearch results.

Ebooks and streaming video

With few exceptions, the titles from all of our ebook and streaming media databases can be found in OneSearch. And in some cases, results representing chapters of ebooks can be found in OneSearch, although links from those records might lead to the ebook start page rather than directly to the chapter described.

Newspapers

OneSearch does not show many newspaper articles. If you want to search for newspaper articles, it is best to go to our individual databases, such as Access World News, Sacramento Bee Collection, US Major Dailies, and New York Times with Index.

Special Resources

Then there are some of resources that are simply not represented in OneSearch. Examples include:

• CollegeSource Online
• CountryWatch
• Ethnologue
• Oxford English Dictionary
• New Play Exchange