Waggoner Library: Google Scholar: Library Databases or Google Scholar?

Comparing Scholar with Library Databases

This informative video (4min 06sec) gives a good perspective of the:

Advantages and disadvantages of using Google Scholar
Advantages and disadvantages of using Library Databases

Note: The Swedish narrator is speaking English. If you have problems understanding, use the Subtitles/Closed Caption (CC) under video settings.

Comparing Library Databases with Google Scholar

"With research, quality trumps quantity.

Google definitely gives plenty of information - sometimes hundreds of millions of hits can be obtained from just one keyword. However, with this massive cohort of data, there is a lot of information that students don't want or need...With sophisticated resources at the library, many research centers [libraries] will already have the scholarly and peer-reviewed content that students require - and the authority and trustworthiness of the articles don't need to be questioned."

- Van Halsema, L. 2014, Retrieved from http://bit.ly/2cN0J4s

Library Databases	Google Scholar
Provide ability to limit or filter search by subject area.	Does not have ability to limit or filter search by subject area.
Can sort results according to date and relevance.	No easy way to sort articles in your results list.
Must use through library websites.	Searching is freely accessible on the Web.
Different search interface, a learning curve.	Recognizable search interface, no learning curve.
Results can be sorted by type of material (journal, newspaper, etc).	Does not clearly specify type of material (journal, newspaper, etc) in the results list.
Can limit searches by a variety of criteria.	No full criteria to limit your search results.
No charge for full text of an article!	Few free scholarly full text journal articles.

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