What's Google Scholar?
Google Scholar is available at http://scholar.google.com/
It's also linked at the Google website and focuses on the scholarly or scientific literature. When you enter a search you will get a list of books and journal articles on your topic. Unlike a regular Google search, no commercial or personal websites are included.
How does this help you?
Here at the DelVal library we have linked our journal and book holdings into the Google database. So, when you see the link "Full-text@my Library" to the right of a hit you can either link to the online version of the article if it's available electronically or see where to locate the paper version in the library. Additionally, you can tell if we have a book in Google Scholar by searching the "library search" link, then clicking on "Search the catalog in your library" on the right hand side of the next screen. One caveat, Google Scholar is in Beta testing; this means that it's still experimental and searches may not be 100% complete. In other words, going through our individual databases with your search terms may give you a more complete search result. But, as an initial search to see what's out there and what the DelVal library has access too, Scholar works well.
Note: if you want to actually access journal articles that the library subscribes to through Google Scholar from off campus, you must use the "Off Campus Access to Databases" link on the front page of the library website. Click on the Google Scholar link.
How to set up Google Scholar to show DelVal holdings from an off-campus computer--
1. At the Google Scholar homepage, click on Preferences to the right of the search box.
2. In the Library Link window enter Delaware Valley College and click Find Library.
The college's name will appear below.
3. Make sure the box to the left of the library's name is checked.
4. Click Save Preferences.
Now your off-campus computer will display DelVal library holdings in your search results.