Web Search Tools

Academic Search Tools

Google Scholar

• Google Scholar searches scholarly content on the web, including journal articles, conference papers, technical reports, dissertations, court cases and legal documents.
• Google does not own or host the content.
• Full text is not always available or free. If you use the proxied link above, you'll be able to link through to full text when it is available in a subscribed collection. Search for the journal title in Online & Print Journals if no full text options are given.
• Google Scholar helps you identify prominent articles by listing the number of times each article has been cited (the higher the number, the more important the work).
• If you use RefWorks to manage and format your citations, you can set Google Scholar to export to RefWorks (Scholar Preferences).

Microsoft Academic Search

• Microsoft Academic searches scholarly journal articles, conference papers, reports.
• Displays the top authors (most publications) and the most popular authors (most read) for each subject covered.
• Like Google, Microsoft does not own or host the content.
• Full text is not always available or free. Search for the journal title in Online & Print Journals if no full text options are given.
• Microsoft Academic helps you identify prominent articles by listing the number of times each article has been cited (the higher the number, the more important the work).
• If you use RefWorks to manage and format your citations, you can export citations from Microsoft Academic.

Scirus

• Scirus is a search engine devoted entirely to science; it filters out other sites.
• retrieves articles and scientific web pages with option to limit to peer-reviewed journals.
• Scirus does not own or host the content.
• Full text is not always available or free. Search for the journal title in Online & Print Journals if no full text options are given.

Standard Search Engines

• Google - see Google Tips and Tricks
• Bing
• Duck Duck Go - does not track you
• Exalead
• Yahoo
• Ask
• Gigablast

Specialized Search Engines

• Million Short - see underneath the popular top layer of search results
• Blekko - Focus on quality over quantity. Spam-free and privacy setting. Enables searchers to create slashtag categories to help focus searching.
• Wolfram Alpha - get factual answers or do calculations, conversions
• Zanran - find statistical data in charts and graphs
• Qwant - launched January 2013 with results from 5 sectors: web, news, knowledge graph (basic facts pulled from Wikipedia), social media, shopping
• Find The Best - aggregates information from review sites and gives a composite score to help you "find the best" option across a range of categories, (e.g. cars, cell plans, dog breeds, day care, hospitals, etc.)
• Find That File
• Good Search - each search earns you a penny toward a charity of your choice

Directories (Selected Sites)

• ipl2: Information You Can Trust
  Merger of Internet Public Library and Librarians' Internet Index.
• Intute
  High quality sites arranged by subject categories. No longer updated as of July 2011.
• Infomine
  Built by librarians. Scope and content are well defined.
• Open Directory Project
  Initiated in 1998, contains over 5 million sites.
• BUBL Link
  Organized by Dewey Decimal Subject Classification. No longer updated as of April 2011.

Meta Search Engines

• Ixquick - private, does not track
• Mr Sapo
• Dogpile
• Yippy
• SurfWax
• Zuula