2. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
Google Scholar is used in three spheres:
1. At the reference desk (and in reference
questions through other methods)
2.In library instruction
3.In library credit courses
3. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
Google Scholar at the
Reference Desk
4. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
At the Reference Desk
5. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
At the Reference Desk
6. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
At the Reference Desk
7. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
At the Reference Desk
On Campus
Listings
FLVC
Listings
8. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
Google Scholar in Library
Instruction
9. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
Library Instruction
10. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
Library Instruction
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Library Instruction
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Library Instruction
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Library Instruction
http://tinyurl.com/sfgooglescholar
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Library Instruction
15. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
Google Scholar in Library
Credit Courses
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Credit Courses – LIS2004
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Credit Courses – LIS2004
18. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
Credit Courses – LIS2004
19. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
Credit Courses – LIS2004
20. Lawrence W. Tyree Library sfcollege.edu/libraryLawrence W. Tyree Library
Credit Courses – Other
LIS1002
LIS2018
Hi everyone! It’s great to be here. I’ve been converted into a total Google Scholar fangirl, so I’m excited to share with you how we are using it at Santa Fe College.
At Santa Fe, we use Google Scholar three different ways: at the reference desk, in our “one-shot” library instruction sessions, and in our for-credit LIS courses.
First, I’m going to talk about how we use Google Scholar to answer reference questions.
So, one of the main ways we use Google Scholar is if a student is looking for a specific citation. I find that it’s much faster and easier to search for the title of the article through Google Scholar than going through A-Z Journals and working through all the steps to locate the article. We have IP authentication on our campus, so if Google Scholar is accessed from a library computer, it will automatically set up the Library Links. We sometimes will get lists of articles, too. One dental professor assigns students certain articles that our library liaison to the health sciences will locate using Google Scholar. Google Scholar also allows you to search using journal abbreviations, which other tools don’t, and that’s helpful for the dental assignment and with other citations from health fields.
One of my liaison areas is the Humanities & Foreign Languages department. I find that Google Scholar is very useful in finding multidisciplinary resources, especially within the humanities. As much as I love JSTOR, I sometimes find it easier to wade through results in Google Scholar. Additionally, there are some great journal titles in databases like Sage, Springer, and Wiley, but I don’t usually think to search those interfaces. So with Google Scholar, they are listed on the results page automatically. Google Scholar also includes articles from open access journals as well as articles that are posted on professor’s websites, so it expands your search beyond library resources.
One assignment in our Bachelor’s of Science in Nursing (BSN) program is for nursing students to locate legal cases related to their discussions each week. Google Scholar has a “case law” option that makes it easy to find relevant cases, and it includes the full text of the cases. In this example, a nursing student emailed librarian Jenna Miller through Canvas, which is our learning management system, asking for help locating cases on nurse manager liability, and she sent back instructions and the included screenshot on searching in Google Scholar.
Since Google Scholar has proven to be so useful, Santa Fe has decided to list it on our database listings. We maintain our own on-campus listings and have it there, and we also asked FLVC to add it to the statewide interface. This link has our institution’s code in it, which means that students who click it automatically have Santa Fe College added to the “Library Links” setup, which reduces the need for them to do so on their own.
The next way that we use Google Scholar is in library instruction classes.
Coverage of Google Scholar in our information literacy (sometimes called bibliographic instruction) classes is steadily increasing. Faculty have the option to request it on our library instruction form, and more are doing so. Even if it is not specifically requested, librarians may choose to cover it if it fits the research assignment needs.
Instruction of Google Scholar in the classroom typically covers how to access it, how to set up the Library Links, and an overview of the options on the right (the full text links or lack thereof). Every information literacy class taught at Santa Fe has a tailored online class guide, and Google Scholar may be included there. This dental class has instructions on how to use Google Scholar to search for specific articles.
Some class guides list Google Scholar on the articles or database page, although it does come with an explanation of how to access full text and a caution that not all articles will be available. This is important because we have most of our databases set up to automatically limit to full text only, so students aren’t used to seeing articles they can’t access.
Other guides include Google Scholar on a web search tips page, along with tips on Google searching, evaluating websites, a list of suggested websites, etc. It’s really a case of personal preference as to where Google Scholar is included in the class guide, and different librarians will present it different ways.
We’ve created a video tutorial covering how to set up the Library Links for Santa Fe holdings. We list this on our Tutorials page, and we frequently embed or link to the tutorial in class guides, research guides, and online modules. Our tutorial is uploaded to Vimeo, which gives us the option to update tutorials without needing a new link.
For flipped or online library instruction modules, which we create and add to a Canvas course, Google Scholar can be included in the lessons as appropriate. This example is for an online-only religion class, and information about how to set up Google Scholar is included in the lesson on journal articles. Further down in that specific lesson is an explanation and a graphic showing how to determine if an article is full text.
Finally, we include Google Scholar in many of our for-credit library courses.
We teach five credit courses, four of which are 1-credit, and one which is 2-credits. Google Scholar appears in three of our five of these courses. The class I teach the most is LIS2004: Internet Research, and this is the class in which Google Scholar is most extensively used. It’s taught as part of the Specialized Web Searching lesson, along with image and video searching.
This lesson covers what Google Scholar is, setting it up, searching, and interpreting and obtaining results. Search techniques that are covered include phrase searching, advanced search, using the limits on the left of the results screen, and specialized field searching techniques, such as the author and intitle searches. Students have already been exposed to these concepts in prior lessons.
Students use these specialized search techniques to identify correct search statements and locate specific articles in both the lesson’s exercise and on the final exam. In this example, they have to create a search statement using the intitle and author limits, locate the article that comes up, and identify the library databases that have the full text of the article.
In addition, locating an article in Google Scholar is part of their final project. The project we use at Santa Fe is a pseudo-annotated bibliography, where students locate five specific types of resources on an approved project topic and include a citation and an annotation on how they found the resource and how it is relevant and appropriate to their topic. One of the required five resources is a full-text scholarly article located through Google Scholar.
Google Scholar is also included to a lesser extent in LIS1002: Library Online Resources and LIS2018: Library Research for Health Sciences. Both classes address it as part of a lesson and have a related question in the lesson exercise, but don’t require it as part of the final project or cover it on the exam.
