Google Scholar Settings for Vanderbilt Users
- Google ScholarVia this link, you can search Google Scholar as a Vanderbilt user, and search results will include "Find it at VU" link, allowing you to execute a search for the article in Vanderbilt databases; in some cases, will include a link to the article itself. Alternatively, you can update your Google Scholar settings to include Vanderbilt Libraries in the Library Links settings page.
Here's how to add Vanderbilt Library links to your Google Scholar searches if you don't want to use the link provided above.
- Go to Google Scholar
- Click on the icon on the left-hand side of the page that looks like three bars
- Click "Settings"
- Click "Library Links"
- In the field for "Show library access links for (choose up to five libraries)," type Vanderbilt
- Check off all of the available options
Google Scholar Extension
Google Scholar Button (available for Google, Opera, and Vivaldi) will let you search Google Scholar from your browser toolbar instead of having to type in the URL every time you need to use this search. It will also give you the first three or four most relevant results from your search and the link to the full text of the journal article (if you have your Library Links preferences enabled). If you click on the full-screen icon at the bottom of the pop-up, the screen will expand to give you the full first page of relevant searches for your keywords.
This feature is also available as a Firefox add-on.
Google Scholar Plus (available for Google, Opera, and Vivaldi) is an extension that will suggest additional similar and relevant keywords to help you expand and revise your search if you get stuck or if you get too few results with your first set of keywords. This extension does not currently have an equivalent for Firefox.
Things to Remember about Using Google Scholar
Don't rely exclusively on Google Scholar for your journal article searches. One limitation of Google Scholar is that it has more coverage of hard science content than social science and other content.
Another limitation is that Google Scholar (like the rest of Google) predicts your future searches by gathering and aggregating data from your prior searches. This means that if you do a fresh search in Google Scholar, the results you get will be influenced in part by what you searched previously, limiting your chances of getting truly fresh results.
One way to combat this is by performing all of your searches in incognito mode on your browser. If you do this, however, you will have to reset your Library Links preferences each time you open the browser in incognito mode.
