Primo contains all of Washington University Libraries’ holdings, including books, journals, periodicals, and multimedia. The default search also shows results from a large index comprising billions of records for popular and scholarly articles, as well as other materials.

You can set your search criteria in a variety of ways, both before (via the Advanced Search) and after obtaining results. For example:

• Under "Show Only" on the search results page, select "Peer-Reviewed Articles" if you only want to see articles published in peer-reviewed journals.
• Under "Tweak my results," select "Include non-full-text articles" to expand your search beyond our licensed titles to include items that must be obtained via interlibrary loan.

The default search of Primo includes:

• The "Central Discovery Index," a large database of articles and other publications, comprising over 5 billion records.
• Classic Catalog, records for what is on the shelf in our libraries.
• Open Scholarship, our scholarly repository of open access publications by WashU-affiliated authors.
• ArchivesSpace, records from the Julian Edison Department of Special Collections.
• WashU Research Data, our repository of research data.

There is also a separate Newspapers search within Primo, available from the "Newspapers" link in the top navigation bar.

Practically everything the library has access to, including the records in other subject databases, is discoverable via Primo. If you have a general or multi-disciplinary topic that you are starting to research, or if you are tracking down a specific citation for a known item, Primo is a great place to start.

However, subject databases with a refined scope may still offer you a more robust way of setting your search criteria. If you are wanting to search by chemical reactant, industry classification code, docket number, age of experimental subjects, and so on, then one of our subject databases is a better place to conduct your search.

Likewise, although all records from the Classic Catalog are loaded to Primo, you may start from the Classic Catalog if you wish to pre-limit your search to physical library holdings. Connecting to the Classic Catalog is also required to:

• Perform My Catalog functions, such as requests and renewals.
• Search for Course Reserve materials.

Primo displays the current status of records from the Classic Catalog, by indicating if they are either "Available" or "Unavailable." Please note: Physical items listed in Primo as "Available" may be restricted to in-library use only. Multi-volume holdings, such as for journals, are not represented in Primo. Unavailable items may be requested through a variety of methods. You can follow the location link in Primo to view more detailed holdings and status information in the Classic Catalog. See the Classic Catalog Guide for details.

Ask Us for help with your research.

University-wide Licensed Content

Please be aware that the full-text availability indicators within Primo are set to display information based on the "main campus" subscriptions we have for content that is accessible by all WashU patrons.

Additional eResources may be available to patrons of certain libraries, such as the Becker Medical Library or the Law Library, who have negotiated exclusive licenses for sites limited to only patrons affiliated with particular schools within WashU.

Primo is unable to display any information about these school-specific arrangements.

Linking Problems

Our linking system does not work perfectly. You may find a link in Primo that does not actually lead to the full-text of your item, and other materials which we have access to may be missing links.

Please let us know about any linking problems you encounter by completing the Report a Problem with an eJournal, eBook, or other eResource form.

The Fixing Linking Errors guide contains some tips for troubleshooting these errors on your own.

You can also use the LibKey.io portal to search by a known DOI for access.

See the vendor’s help site for more information.

Ask Us if you have any questions or comments.