If you are looking for books on a particular topic that are in the University Libraries, you should use the library catalog, which is available on the Libraries' web site. It is labeled "Quick Search."
Google Books can also be a useful way to identify relevant books, especially since it allows you to do some internal searching of the books' contents (which typically isn't possible when searching a library catalog). If you find a book that looks interesting, you can check the library catalog to see if we own a copy.
The primary way to locate articles, both scholarly and popular, on a particular topic is to use a library database. A library database is typically a collection of articles from a large number of magazines, journals, and newspapers over a range of years. You can browse through articles from an issue of a particular periodical, or you can search across all of the periodicals included in the database to identify articles on a particular topic. Some databases are more general, covering a wide range of academic disciplines but not in great depth. Other databases are subject specific. Almost every academic discipline has a database that is related to or focused on that particular area of study. For example, a database called APA PsycInfo is the primary article database for psychology. All of the University Libraries' databases can be found via the link below.
Although it is technically possible to also find articles using a search engine like Google, you have to work a bit harder to dig them out from all of the other types of search results (e.g., blog posts, commercial web sites, etc.). In other words, don't expect to find your perfect articles on page 1 of your Google search results list! Or maybe not even page 2. . . Using Google simply isn't as efficient a way of locating articles as using a library database.
One exception is the Google Scholar index, which is a subset of the larger Google search index. Google Scholar is a specialized subset of the larger Google web index. Its purpose is to allow you to search broadly for "scholarly literature." This sounds great in theory, but unlike traditional library databases, there isn't a list of all of the scholarly journals that might be included in the index, the dates that they cover, etc. You could find one article from an issue of a journal but that doesn't necessarily mean that all of the other articles from that issue will be searchable. It is more of a mystery. In additi on, in some cases, even though you might identify an article using Google Scholar, the article itself is available only through the University Libraries' collection. However, Google Scholar's primary strength is that it allows you to do a more comprehensive search across multiple academic disciplines. This can be quite helpful, especially as you are beginning to explore a top
Because the University Libraries' is a regional U.S. government document depository, a lot of government documents are findable through the library catalog (Quick Search). As many of the government print publications have moved to an electronic-only format, there are a variety of special search engines that are used to track down government documents. The Libraries has a page on its web site that discusses access to government documents.