When classes begin Aug. 22, USC students will find it easier than ever to do academic searches on the Web.

Scholars Portal, a smart browser created by Information Services Division and partner institutions to simplify academic searches, allows users to perform simultaneous searches of Homer – USC’s online library catalog – and 40 core USC subscription databases. The initial version was launched in the spring.

“The Scholars Portal was designed primarily for undergraduate research needs, and the selected databases are those most likely to return content for undergraduate subject searches,” said Deborah Holmes-Wong, a USC digital information specialist.

Although still in its beta release, the newest version of Scholars Portal offers users the ability to filter results by full-text availability.

“This is by far the biggest improvement,” Holmes-Wong said. “It means that undergraduates are guaranteed available online content for their topic searches,” she said.

Additional improvements target usability and configurability. A new interface contains nested, or collapsed, resources to simplify navigation. The advanced search page gives users the option of limiting results by date ranges. The results page has been redesigned to make the identification of USC holdings more immediately visible.

The new version of Scholars Portal includes a Build Search Box feature that provides transferable HTML code so that faculty, staff and students who have their own Websites can easily create customized connections to the USC Libraries.

Scholars Portal is a project sponsored by the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The continued development of the portal represents the collaborative efforts of USC and partner institutions – all members of ARL.

Jerry D. Campbell, USC’s chief information officer and dean of the University Libraries, developed a white paper in 2000 that led to ARL’s adoption of the project. Holmes-Wong is the project’s USC liaison.

If you have questions about Scholars Portal or would like to provide feedback about its use, contact Holmes-Wong at dhwong@usc.edu.