Google Scholar is different from Google. Instead of searching public web content, it searches scholarly literature such as journal and conference papers, theses and dissertations, academic books, pre-prints, abstracts, and technical reports.
You can set up Google Scholar to link to full text from the Alfred University Libraries. Once it’s set up, you will be presented with links to full text or, if full text isn’t available, to interlibrary loan. Instruction are available here. If you have questions, please contact libraries@alfred.edu.
Google Scholar is especially useful for:
Quickly finding articles from a partial citation. Google Scholar can often find an article with just the title, and will provide the full citation and access to full text options once you have set up Google Scholar (see “How to set up Google Scholar to link to Alfred University full text”).
Finding resources on interdisciplinary topics and supplementing information found in discipline-specific databases.
Finding “gray literature” like conference proceedings.
Identifying highly cited works.
Taking advantage of Google Scholar tools such as the “Cited by” and “Related articles” links
Setting up alerts for topics of interest.
Google Scholar is less effective when it comes to:
Searching with the accuracy of library databases.
Searching literature in one discipline/field.
Searching with controlled vocabulary/subject terms.
