Helka Guide: Search Tips

This guide presents search tips in the Helka database.

Helka Tutorial Videos

Helka tutorial videos

Helka Tutorial How to Find Sources (5:25 min, Helsinki University Library 2021, CC BY)

 

 

How to Find Helsinki University Library e-Materials in Google Scholar – (0:57 min, Helsinki University Library 2021, CC BY)

How to Find a Book

How to find a book

Write the name of the book (or some words of it) and choose “Library Catalog".

You can also write names of the authors in order to refine the result.    

Helka Search a book in Basic search

Helka Basic Search

Helka Basic Search

In Helka basic search you can target your search to specific resource types. The default option is Library catalog (books, journals, databases, theses). You can also target your search to International articles or choose Everything (searches everything Helka contains).

Helka Basic Search target

You can choose how your query words appear in the search result.

  • The default option is “contains query words” (all words should appear).
  • You can also choose “with exact phrase” (words should be exactly in the order and form you have written them).
  • You can also choose “begins with” (your keywords appear in the beginning of the search, e.g. the beginning of the title).

Helka basic search keywords options

You may also target the search to different fields: in the title, author/creator, subject, ISBN (for books) or ISSN (for journals and series) etc.

Helka basic search target keywords to fields

 

Helka and Other Databases

Helka and other databases

Helka is the starting point to find materials acquired by the library. You can find lots of international articles via Helka. You can easily check in Helka whether a certain article is available online or quickly find some articles on your topic. Search results may also include references to e-articles and e-books without access to full text (references to articles and e-books library has not bought). The International articles search includes most of the databases library has bought but not all. In many cases it is also useful to search in other databases available.

Search international articles in field specific and multidisciplinary databases especially when

  • you are making a systematic or comprehensive information seeking, e.g. for a literature review 
  • you want to make comprehensive information seeking in your field of subject
  • you are searching references for your thesis or other larger written work
  • you want to use the thesauruses or search tools of the databases  

You can find field specific and multidisciplinary databases   

  • by searching with database name in the Helka Database Search
  • by browzing databases by category in the Helka Database Search 
  • by browzing the field specific research guides by the library

 

If you want to find Finnish articles, use the Finna portal

If you want to search Finnish articles in medicine and nursing, use Medic database (available in University of Helsinki network).
 

When looking for materials in humanities, search in the National Library's collections as well. In the National Library Search Service narrow the search results to materials available for home loan by selecting the collection Humaniora.

How to Find Books on a Topic

How to find books on a topic
  • Write keywords on your topic in English (and in Finnish) and click “Library catalog”
    • Using Finnish keywords in addition to English ones broadens your search results. In Helka printed books – regardless of their language – usually have Finnish keywords from the Finnish thesaurus called YSO (General Finnish Ontology). In YSO you can find keywords in Finnish, English and Swedish. Go to YSO, write your keyword in English and you'll find the Finnish (and Swedish) translations.
    • E-books have keywords in the language they have been written (majority of the e-books in Helka are in English).
  • You can truncate keywords with asterisk (*) to get all variations of a word (root), e.g. librar* -> library, libraries
  • The quotations around the words refine the search, e.g. "climate change". Using quotation marks is equal to search option “with my exact phrase” in the Helka basic search.  
  • Keywords can be combined with the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT. (Write the Boolean operators AND, OR, NOT with capital letters in order to perform the search right).  
    • sweetener OR sucrose OR saccharose OR sugar  
    • (sweetener* OR sugar) AND (teeth OR tooth)

You can refine the search results with various filters in the “Tweak your results” menu on the right. 

  • Choose Resource type "Books". You can tweak your search results by choosing "Available online" (e-books), "Held by library" (printed books) or "Open Access" (e-books online open for all).

 

How to find Articles on a Topic

How to find articles on a topic
  • Target your search by choosing International articles.
  • Use keywords in English (depending on your subject, also other languages may be useful)
     
  • Please note when using Helka's International articles search:
    • Search results may also include references without acces to fulltext (references to e-articles or e-books library has not bought)
    • Search includes most of the databases library has bought but not all
    • If you are doing systematic/ comprehensive search, it is useful to search international articles in field specific and multidisciplinary databases. You find them in Helka by browzing databases by category in the Helka Database Search or by browzing the field specific research guides by the library.

 

Helka Advanced Search

Helka Advanced Search

The Advanced search offers more options to target your search and combine keywords.

  • In the Search profile you can target your search to the Library catalog, International articles or Everything.
  • You can target your search e.g. to title, author or subject .
  • You can specify your keyword search (contains / (is) exactly / starts with). Searching with “is exact” is equal as phrase search (quotation marks around the words).
  • You can combine your keywords with AND/OR/NOT operators.
  • You can target the search to a specific material type (books, articles etc), language or year range.

A search string example (English and Finnish keywords, words are truncated with * mark)

Helka Advanced search example2

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