Google Scholar and the Academic Web

Ben TaylorsonAcademic Liaison Librarian

Outline

• Intelligent web searching• Google Scholar• Academic web• Wider web• Hidden web

Intelligent web searching

• What are you looking for?– Breadth or precision– Single document or comprehensive coverage

• How are you searching?– Targeted searching• Combining terms = narrow search; AND is assumed• OR, “phrase”, -not, ˜synonym, intitle:, site:ac.uk,

date:months– Evaluating results

Google

How to search effectively:– + include common words, letters or numbers– - excludes all results that include this search term– “phrase search”– OR for either of your search terms– intitle: only returns results that include your

search term in the document's title– ~ search for multiple synonyms

Google Scholar

• Scholarly literature• Articles, theses, books, abstracts or court

opinions• Advanced features– Citations, grouped articles, related articles, alerts,

set up ConneXions off campus, links to Endnote downloads

Google Scholar

Advantages over library databases

More results!

%

Advantages over library databases

• More results• Broader range of resource types e.g. books,

journal articles, theses• Information from range of sources e.g.

databases, publishers, OA repositories• Can have better date coverage

Disadvantages

• Too many results(?)• Less quality control• Doesn’t index all databases• Inconsistent level of bibliographic information• Some non-academic document types e.g.

handbooks• Less developed search options and ability to

limit searches

Hands-on

• Link to Google Scholar• Set up preferences• Search using advanced search screen• Explore advanced options e.g. alerts• How does it compare with library databases

you use?

Academic resources

• Library catalogue, databases• Generic portals– BUBL, Pinakes, Infomine, Intute

• Subject portals– TechXtra, Voice of the Shuttle, Scirus

Academic resources

• Books– Google Books, Gutenberg Project, Universal

Library, Alex

• Journal ToCs– ZETOC, ticTOCs, My Favourite Journals , CiteULike

Current Issues

Academic resources

Open Access and repositories

• Institutional: DRO, Durham e-Theses, D-space at MIT

• Subject specific: ArXiv, British History Online• Harvesters: OAIster, Driver

• …and of course Google Scholar

Hands-on

• Try and access full text academic resources using freely available search engines and not Google Scholar

• Investigate some of the other online resources we have just looked at

The wider web

• Different search engines have different search options

• They give different results• They present them in a different order– ranking depends on location of word in title,

headings, frequency, proximity

Types of search engine

• Search engines vs. meta-search engines

Ask, Bing, Google, Yahoo

Vs.

Mamma, Dogpile, Metacrawler

Hands-on

• Try a search engine you wouldn’t normally use• Try a meta-search engine• Look at the advanced search options• Are there any results that will make you refine

your search?

Hidden web

• Search engines can access only about 16% of the available information on the WWW.

• Many library databases are not indexed by Google Scholar and other search engines.

• If they are, they may not be very visible.

Library web pages

Access to tools

• Handouts and slides are available at www.dur.ac.uk/library/research/training/

• Most of the links mentioned in today’s session are included in the handout

• Or via the web page:www.netvibes.com/intelligentwebsearch#Welcome!

Evaluation

Please fill in the evaluation sheet to let me know what you thought of this session

More information • Ben Taylorson– Benjamin.taylorson@durham.ac.uk– or 0191 3342975

• Liaison Librarian for your department– www.dur.ac.uk/library/resources/subject/