What do I do if I can't find anything on my topic?
When good searches go wrong, what do you do?
Answer
Don't panic! There a couple of easy things to try, depending on how you searched and what you mean by "not finding anything".
If you started by putting in a sentence and you are getting 0 results, you'll want to try and get your question down to a word or two. Our databases prefer keywords, like you'd use when you're shopping on Amazon or Temu.
If you are getting 5,000,000 results and it doesn't look like any are what you wanted, try adding a couple more words to get more specific.
If the results are just not matching what you were envisioning at all, try to think of synonyms for your keywords. If you're looking for something about food-poisoning, you can try "foodborne illness" or "e. coli" or "listeria". Sometimes it helps to brainstorm potential synonyms first and then see what results each one gets you.
If you want to get fancier, check out these resources on Boolean searching, other advanced search techniques, or come talk to a librarian. We literally do this for fun.