We've probably all used Google Scholar at some point.
When I teach it to students, I almost always refer to this iceberg meme.
Consequently, I often promote it as a tool to use after one has exhausted the library's licensed databases. But scholarly analyses of any kind take time to create and publish. It takes even more time for that scholarship to then be licensed and added to the huge amount of journal content in library databases. I say, let's always try to use both Google Scholar and the library's databases together.
"There There" AND urban AND heritage OR culture AND "tommy orange"
Google Scholar
It is nicely straightforward to use Google Scholar just by itself if you want to do a basic search across several search engine/databases that do not otherwise interact with each other. To make sure that you are accessing all of the resources that we pay for, however, you need to make sure that you have added Salisbury University as our library before you begin searching. Doing this is extremely easy - just follow the steps below!
1.). Navigate your way to Google Scholar and look for the three-bar "stack" in the upper left hand corner. This is where you will find the Settings option.
2. Under Settings, choose the Library links option. This will open up a new window with an empty box in it. In that box, type in Salisbury University, and then hit the 'search' button.
3. Once you have done that, two additional checkbox options will appear below the search box - both listing options for Salisbury University. Check them both off, then hit Save.
Now you are good to go! You can start searching for whatever it is that you are looking for, and your search results will be displayed in a "regular" Google-like way. But this time, you will see any full-text links that are available through SU Libraries linked to the right of the article title, and clicking on that right-hand link will take you to the SU login/SU-provided full text access!
Using the connectivity between an SU search engine/database (in this example, MLA Int. Bib. Database) and Google Scholar is extremely simple!
Searching in the MLA International Bibliography is very similar to searching in any other database or search engine that you might have used before. Below, you will see a series of screenshots and step by step explanations showing how to search through MLA IB. Reading through the steps and looking at the screenshots will help you to independently work your way through a search, see how Google Scholar is integrated to best provide you with full-text results when our paid-for resources are not able to do so, and how to fully understand your results!
Note: Our library databases are especially bad at finding critical essays related to all three texts. However, they are terrific at finding research articles that you might use as sources to support or corroborate points you may make in a thesis.
After you type your keywords into the search box, hit the Search button to search through the database and look for journal articles related to your topic. Some of the journal articles will have a very visible link that you can use to access the full-text of the article. Others will not have this visible full-text link, and as such you'll need to click on the FindIt button instead to have the computer system look through all 150+ other databases that we subscribe to in order to see if that article is available through one of those instead. The good news is that this process only takes a few seconds!
When you click on the FindIt button, you will be taken to a new tab/window that looks like the screen shot below. Many times this new tab/window will provide you with immediate full text access to the article through a different one of our databases. If this happens, this is great! Just click on the full-text link and you will be taken to the article so that you can read/save/export it.
Hit a paywall? NEVER PAY
Occassionally, a Find It link will relay you to Google Scholar and a pay wall, which asks you to pay for access to the source. Never pay!
No matter what source you are unable to access, you can always request it for free through SU Libraries InterLibrary Loan service.
If you ever hit this paywall, simply go back to the FindIt button window, and click on the Inter-Library Loan link. Doing so will tell us that you need a copy of the article - and we'll use our online system to connect up with another library who does have access to the article, and we'll work to get you a free, electronic copy of the article as quickly as we can!
