UCL Library Services -- Explore

Explore is UCL Library Services' single search tool for finding journals, books, full-text articles, archive material and much more. Whether you're looking for items on your reading list or information for a project or research, you'll find it in Explore and you get instant access to any full-text we subscribe to.

Explore contains the whole of the UCL library catalogue, but also much more besides.

What content is available in Explore?

All resources	Search everything in Explore
Library catalogue	Printed and electronic book and journal titles held by UCL
Journal articles	A remotely-held catalogue of millions of electronic journal articles and other full-text e-resource
Digital collections	UCL Library Services' digital collections
UCL Discovery	Open access documents from UCL's publications repository
UCL Exam papers	Electronic copies of UCL exam papers
UCL Archives	UCL's archives catalogue
UCL Journals	Journal titles to which UCL Library provides access, print and electronic
UCL Reading Lists	Links to lists by course or title

What is the best way to search Explore?

If you know you are looking for a particular type of material, we recommend limiting your search to that type of material before entering your search terms. E.g. if you know you are looking for a library book, select Library catalogue from the drop-down list before typing your search.

If you are looking for the most relevant information (of any type) on a particular topic, simply type your search terms into the box and then look at your results. You can later narrow down your search results by type of material (e.g. UCL library books) if you wish, simply by clicking on one of the links to the left of the results.

How are Explore's search results ranked?

Explore uses a complex ranking called ScholarRank which is tailored to the academic environment. It starts by ranking results according to the presence of your search terms in their author/title etc. Then it ranks materials more highly if they are known to be more well-respected/used by academic users.