Using EBSCO from the MCPL Website

EBSCO is a collection of databases that contain articles from newspapers, magazines, professional journals and online sources. It is part of the KVL (Kentucky Virtual Library)

  1. Start from the MCPL homepage www.mcplib.info.

  2. Click on “EBSCO”, a page will come up with a box to enter a password.

  3. Type your given password. Contact MCPL for this password.

  4. Click on “login”.

  5. At the very top of the next page, click on “EBSCOhost”.

  6. A long page of database descriptions will appear. More than one database may be searched at the same time by placing a check mark in the small white box to the left of the database title.

  7. Once you have selected all the databases you wish to search, go to the bottom of the page and click “continue”.

  8. The default search page has three boxes for search terms. Start out as specifically as possible.

  9. Type your search term or terms in the white boxes.

  10. You may select the type of search with the dropdown menus in the second group of boxes, or you may leave them as default fields.

  11. Scroll down on the page until you see a box with “full text” next to it. You want to make sure this box is checked by clicking in it.

  12. After you have entered your search terms, click on “search”.

  13. To view an article, click on one of the links. It will say “HTML full text” or “PDF Full text”. Some articles will have both options available.

  14. To view a PDF file you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. You may download this free at www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html.

  15.  You may save documents to disks or hard drives or send them to printers or e-mail.

  16.  Extensive help and tutorial files are available for all of KVL’ s services.

If for any reason you click on EBSCO and get two boxes for username and password, you must contact your local library for the latest passwords. Call (859) 734-3680 for new passwords or with any questions.

You may also search EBSCO through KVL, but results seem to differ than when using EBSCO by itself. You may also get better results searching one database at a time.

EBSCO may be used just like a copy of a print magazine as a source. It is not an online journal, it is a collection of reproduced magazine and journal articles that just happen to be collected on the world wide web. Professors and teachers should accept these articles as valid print resources.

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