In Andor, you will find customer functions as well as printed and electronic resources provided by the library. If you are making systematic searches for your thesis we advice you to also search in databases offered in subject guides.
After signing in to Andor, you are able to see your loans, requests, unpaid fees and customer information. You are able to renew loans and see the status of your requested books. Clicking library card icon, you see an overview of your information in one look. You may continue to see all your loans, requests, fees, library blocks or messages and personal details respectively.
In favourites you will see the results you have saved earlier. You may also save search queries and make search alerts. You may also create your own tags to your saved results, that only you can see.
N:B: If you are using a public computer, remember to log out from Andor, so the next user cannot see your personal information.
A picture of the overview of customer's library card information:
In favourites, you will see your saved results.
In Basic search you may search within all resources "everything", or you may select a predefined limitation to one of the following:
In basic search, you may combine your multiple search terms with Booleans AND and OR (use block letters). You may also truncate your search words with * (asterisk). However, without asterisk, there is automatic stemming in Andor, that retrieves words in inflected forms (behaviour finds behavior). Sometimes using asterisk may reduce the number of results. You may add quotation marks to search for phrases (N.B. read instructions if your phrasal search does not work!). Read more about search algorithms : Search and ranking in Central Discovery Index.
Examples of search queries:
In Advanced search you may make targeted searches in the collections the same way as the basic search by choosing one of the radio buttons. You may also make a lot of other choices. You may choose if your search term appears in the title field, author field or subject term field. You may search with exact terms, combine your search words by selecting AND/OR/NOT from the drop down menu. You may select time, language, and publication type limits etc.
N.B! Read Instructions on how to search with Booleans and phrases (limitations to using phrases), and find out how the search engine ranks the results: Search and ranking in Central Discovery Index.
For more thorough searches howewer, use the invidual databases. You may find suitable databases via databases list or subject guides.
You may Tweak your results after your search.
In the left-hand menu you'll find useful limits, that will narrow down your search results:
On the search result list, you will find icons next to each item, that help you to save results for further use.
You may send the results to your own e-mail (e-mail icon), copy the result in as a bibliographic reference in different referencing styles (quotation mark icon), or save your results in your personal account in Andor (pin icon).
Three dots open other options, such as saving your reference to reference management system.
In journal search you will find electronic and printed journals provided by the library. Seach by journal title or ISSN number. In the left hand menu you will find international journals by category, does not cover Finnish journals.
A-Z Databases you will find links to different databases.
In Andor basic and and advanced searches you will find a good number of results. However, for more specific and extensive searches also use databases native interfaces. You fill find them via a-z databases list or library guides. For example, Finnish articles or certain resource types (legal documents, statistical information) is better search via databases.
The AI Research assistant works only when logged in. You can log in with your TUNI credentials (students and staff) or a library card (other customers). Please note that full texts of licensed materials are not accessible to other customers.
The AI research assistant is a tool that operates using generative AI, specifically leveraging Large Language Models (LLMs). You can ask your questions in natural language. The AI research assistant searches the 'International Articles' group in Andor for five sources that can help answer your question. Then it extracts the most relevant information from the description or abstract of each source to formulate an answer. In this summary, you will see references to the sources used. These sources are listed separately with the summary. Please review the generated answer by familiarizing yourself with the referenced sources.
The AI research assistant facilitates familiarization with new topics and provides quick answers to individual questions. However, the accuracy of the content and the evaluation of the sources used are always the user's responsibility. By clicking the 'View more results' button, you can see additional sources retrieved by the AI research assistant. You can also continue exploring the topic using the follow-up questions provided by the AI research assistant.
Your question is converted into a search query, which the AI research assistant formulates using a large language model (currently GPT-4o mini). The AI research assistant chooses the sources based on how well they answer your question. It then creates a summary of the five sources it deems the best.
It is inherent to language models that answers to the same question may not always be the same. There can be multiple possible answers, and relevant sources may vary. If you are not satisfied with your answers, use the ‘Try again’ button.
Be as clear and detailed as possible and phrase your topic in the form of a question. The words and terms you use will affect the content of the answer. You can find example questions on the start screen. In the question box icon, you are able to select the type of material (journal articles, peer-reviewed, or books) as well as the time restriction (last 12 months, last 5 or 10 years, or a custom date) to which the answer is based on.
What languages can I use in my questions?
You can ask your question in English, Finnish, or any other language you prefer. Most of the source material is in English. If you ask a question in a language other than English, the AI research assistant will search in both (the language you used and in English) and respond to you in the language of the question. The AI research assistant currently uses OpenAI’s GPT-4o mini language model for language processing and translation. You can add language-specific instructions to your question, such as ‘answer in German’ or ‘answer in French’.
My previous searches section in the left panel lists the first question asked for each topic, which may contain many questions. Unless you use the New question option, all questions are added to a single topic. If you are researching different areas, it may be best to start a new topic for each area. The last 200 Research Assistant searches are saved. You may delete your questions from the list.
The AI assistant does not yet support follow-up questions. Each question is treated separately. For example, if you ask, ‘what topics did Simone de Beauvoir write about’, you cannot follow up with ‘and what is the content of that work’ and expect the system to understand the context. Therefore, you need to include all relevant details in each question, such as ‘what is the content of Beauvoir's work 'The Second Sex'?’
The AI Research assistant retrieves materials from the International Articles search group. Despite the name the seach group includes also other material types in addition to articles. Currently, the following materials are not included in the search results: newspaper articles, materials with insufficient metadata, withdrawn and retracted articles, materials from providers APA, DataCite, Elsevier, JSTOR, and Conde Nast.
Give Feedback
The AI research assistant is still incomplete. You can evaluate the quality of the response you received and provide feedback using the thumbs up or thumbs down icons below the response. The thumb icon opens the feedback form.
