Free search tools for finding research information
This article reviews some of the free search tools that are available for finding research information on the web. It looks at how Google operates, how you can search Google and the alternatives more effectively, and reviews a selection of specialist tools covering research information. It includes five things you need to know about Google, advanced searching in Google, alternative web search tools, institutional repositories and specialist tools.
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Information.pdf
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Contents
Introduction
Five things you need to know about Google search
1. Google personalises your results
2. Google automatically looks for variations on your terms and omits terms
3. Google does not search everything
4. Google changes its algorithms several hundred times a year
5. We are all Google's lab rats
Advanced searching in Google
Phrase searching
Verbatim
Think file format
Site search
Numeric range search
Words in the title
Words in the URL
Date
Reading level
Alternative web search tools
Bing
DuckDuckGo
Million Short
Yandex
Zanran
Institutional repositories
BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)
DART-Europe E-theses Portal
Institutional Repository Search (IRS)
Open DOAR
RIAN - Pathways to Irish Research
ROAR - Registry of Open Access Repositories
Specialist tools
ArXiv
BioMed Central
Chemistry Central
ChemSpider
Deep Web Technologies
Europe PubMed Central
Google Scholar
Mendeley
Microsoft Academic Search
Open Biology
PhilPapers: Online Research in Philosophy
PubMed Central
Scirus
TechXtra
Final comments
Links to search tools mentioned in the review
References
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