Google Scholar? Holler!

Google Scholar

What?  A subset of Google that searches for scholarly literature on the web. A mix of full-text, citations and abstracts.

 

New: Three of the library’s digital collections are now indexed in Google Scholar: JSTOR, Ebsco, and Proquest.

 

Meaning? When searching Google Scholar, freely available citations, abstracts and full-text are retrieved, AND now, content from the three library providers named above.

 

“Adolescents and Sleep.” Search results page.  Google Scholar. Web. 02 Feb. 2016.

Quick note: While an exciting and valuable tool, Google Scholar is a non-discerning aggregator, in that it includes questionable and even possibly predatory open-access titles.  When using Google Scholar, consider consulting Beall’s list of “Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers” as well as this guide from Berkley’s Science Center for the Greater Good to help assess the quality of an academic source: “10 Questions to Ask About Scientific Studies.”

For a little look into predatory journal practices, here’s a 2013 New York Times article titled: Scientific Articles Accepted (Personal Checks, Too)

 

Another Quick note:   Retrieval of full-text articles, from these three library providers, using the links in Google Scholar, is only available while on-campus. Off the grounds?  Please log in to vpn.sps.edu and locate the article directly from the named database.

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