Google Scholar is an index to scholarly journal articles. While most of the scholarly journals are also indexed in other databases such as Academic Search Premier and JSTOR, Google Scholar allows you to search for articles on your topic in a very large number of journals.
It is important to remember that: 1. Google Scholar is not comprehensive. Other indexes available through the library may have articles not covered by Google Scholar. 2. Google Scholar has a less powerful search engine than some of the other journal indexes. 3. Google Scholar may or may not link you to the full text of the article.
The full texts of articles in Google Scholar are available to you when: 1. The articles are from public sources, such as nonprofit organizations & government agencies. You will see links to the full texts of the articles next to the article citations. 2. The articles come from journals to which the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries subscribes & has access to the articles in electronic form. Because access is restricted, you will not see a link to the full text of these articles unless you are using a campus computer or a computer on which you have set a preference for University of Nebraska-Lincoln in Google Scholar. The preference gives you a direct connection to databases licensed for University of Nebraska-Lincoln faculty, staff & students. Open URL technology passes information from Google through the library server, matches the citation with a database we maintain, & allows access with a UN ID number.
Setting a preference for University of Nebraska-Lincoln on your computer: 1. On the Google Scholar main page, select Scholar Preferences from the top toolbar next to where you put in your search. 2. In the Library Links box put in Nebraska and then click Find Library. 3. When the search finishes click on University of Nebraska box. 4. Save preferences.
You should now see Full Text @ University of Nebraska-Lincoln next to citations. When you click on Full Text @ University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a new window will open. The window will offer possible resources including a direct link to the article through our proxy server. To access the article, you will have to put in your login information (last name, University of Nebraska-Lincoln-ID number & password). If we do not have the full text of the article electronically, you may “Request Delivery” to get a digitized copy through Delivery/ILL.
Everyone knows GOOGLE Search. The pre-eminent web search engine owned by Google, Inc. is the most-used search engine on the world wide web, handling more than three billion searches each day. Google search indexes more than 20 billion pages with relevance ranking of search results based on linkages and authority. The main purpose of Google Search is to hunt for text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers. Other search services are provided by Google, Inc. including Google Scholar, which searches online scholarly literature.
Expand your repertoire! You may have another favorite general internet search engine. Because many search engines focus on different subsets of the internet, function differently and present results differently, you may want to try something new. Here are a number of possibilities:
Answers.com A search service devoted to providing direct answers, not just links, to search queries. Taking it's content from over 100 encyclopedias, dictionaries, glossaries, atlases and other sources, it generates an organized page of relevant information without requiring you to click on any further Web links. "Best of the Web" links, however, may still be included.
Ask.com Formerly called Ask Jeeves, this search engine has made major improvements over the last few years and released a new interface in February 2006. It features a toolbox on the right side that provides access to a variety of search tools including maps, images, weather, dictionary, local and desktop search. The mapping function is more sophisticated than those offered by Google and the other major search engines and uses arial photographs rather than satelite.The Encyclopedia search extends the "direct answers" Ask has provided for several years with its "smart search" feature by providing content from Wikipedia, Houghton Mifflin and Columbia encyclopedias right at the top of a result page. It also provides suggestions for broadening or narrowing your search.
Bing Formerly Live Search, Windows Live Search, and MSN Search, Bing is the current search engine from Microsoft.
DOGPILE Meta-search engine that will query multiple Web, Usenet, and FTP search indexes. In custom search mode, the user can choose specific indexes to be searched.
Exalead Billed as indexing more than 16 billion pages so far, it offers search tools not available elsewhere, including proximity searching, true truncation, limitation by language, approximate and phonetic spelling options, fuzzy searching, and others. It indexes Text (.txt.), Word (.doc), Acrobat (pdf.), Excel (.xls), PowerPoint (.ppt), Rich Text Format (.rtf) WordPerfect (.wpd) and Flash documents (.swf). The results screen include listings of related terms, related categories and web site location as well as snapshots of the pages retrieved.
GIGABLAST Debuting in 2002, Gigablast has a smaller database than Google or Yahoo, but has some nice features. In ranking search results it gives less emphasis to links between pages, and more to occurrence of search terms and their proximity, particularly phrases. The search results can be resorted to display by date rather than the default of relevancy ranking. It also indexes commonly found words ("stop words") that are ignored by other search engines. The GigaBits feature shows concepts related to your search. No sponsored links or banner ads. Advanced search form available.See Gigablast help page
IXQUICK Meta-search engine that can be searched in a variety of languages. The search engines chosen for each language are supposed to reflect the needs of each language group. You can specify Web, MP3, newsgroup or picture searches. Searches All the Web, Ask Jeeves/Teoma, EntireWeb, FindWhat, Gigablast, Go, LookSmart, MSN, Netscape, Open Directory, Overture, WiseNut and Yahoo. Ranks the results by how many search engine hits each produce. The use of Boolean operators, wildcards and other features can be found under "Hints and help" on the About IxQuick Search page.
YAHOO! Yahoo! switched to its own search technology in 2004 and its database indexes an estimated 4.2 billion pages. This is a smaller number than Google's, but Yahoo indexes to a depth of 500K while Google only indexes the first 101K and in some cases only indexes the link, not the page.See Yahoo search help. Also maintains a site geared to children,YAHOO! KIDS, which includes simplified introductions to the Internet.
Thanks to colleagues Jeanetta Drueke & Judellen Thorton-Jaringe for the content of this box.
