Discover is the Library search engine. Discover allows you to quickly search for a broad range of material in your topic area, by searching a large number of databases at the same time. However, there are some databases/resources that Discover does not cover, so please do also investigate the special subscriptions as chosen by lecturers and academic librarians on your subject guides.

Databases often focus on a specific subject area. As your academic interests develop, you'll need to use a range of databases alongside Discover. When you are researching for your dissertation, you will need to conduct comprehensive research in your topic area. Databases can help you to do this. 

Check out your subject page for more hints about the best databases to use.

Google Scholar offers better academic based results than standard Google, for many subject areas and can provide some useful resources.  But Google Scholar is not as comprehensive as using Discover and your subject guide databases (particularly for systematic reviews where replicability of searches is important).