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Google Scholar for Research: Ray Howard Library

How to link Google Scholar to the Shoreline Community College Library's resources

Researching with Google Scholar

  • Google Scholar is another great tool to add to your research strategies when looking for academic articles, scholarly journals, and peer-reviewed resources.
  • Google Scholar allows you to run a specialized search of papers written in academic contexts across databases and other locations. Since many scholarly or academic papers are behind paywalls, you can link your Google Scholar search settings with Shoreline Community College's Ray Howard Library so that your searches identify which of these results can also be found in full text in our library databases. Linking our library with your search settings makes sure you see which resources we have access to. 

 

  • As with any search tool, there are limitations to how Google Scholar can collect and list relevant results on your topic, but it can be a good starting place where you'll be able to search and retrieve results that are already accessible to you through Shoreline Community College's own databases of academic articles. 
  • For more information about how Google Scholar describes its results rankings and other features, check their About section. Remember, no information search or access tools are ever neutral, and as a researcher you always want to do your own evaluation of whether the materials you locate through Google Scholar meet your criteria for trustworthy, academic sources.

Overview of Google Scholar

Check out this quick step-by-step introduction to Google Scholar, with instructions for linking results to Shoreline's Library and a tour of some key search features.

For best search results, adjust your settings to link Google Scholar to our Library databases

To link Google Scholar to the Shoreline Community College Library:

1. Open Google Scholar, click on the three lines in the left-hand quarter to open up the Settings menu.

screenshot of google scholar homepage with search bar and settings menu circled in top left hand corner

 

2. Open the drop down menu and scan to "Settings" at the bottom of the menu

screenshot of google scholar homepage with settings menu open on left side, settings option circled

 

3. Once in "Settings," click on "Library Links" in the left-side menu

screenshot of google scholar settings menu with "library links" underlined

This opens a search for libraries, enter "shoreline community college" (or "Ray W. Howard Library at Shoreline Community College") into the search bar and when the result appears, check the box next to each library name.

Then make sure to hit "Save"

screenshot of google scholar settings menu library links search with shoreline community college entered into search bar and results for Ray W. Howard Library and Shoreline Library checked and circled. The word save is circled at the bottom of the image

 

4. Now when you enter your search terms into the Google Scholar search bar, when you see results that have a link or a pdf available to the right of the article, this means you have access to this resource through the Shoreline Community College Library! 

screenshot of google scholar search results for the terms gene therapy clinical trials with pdf results circled to demonstrate library's full text access

 

Use the filters on the left side to narrow down your search results and to explore more resources, click on "Related articles" or "Cited by" underneath the article to find more voices in this scholarly conversation. 

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