Google and other search engines offer only limited ways to target and refine your search. The following tricks work in Google; similar functionality is available in many web search tools.

-- Start with the most specific terms.

Search using words associated with your topic that are unique, or proper names, abbreviations or acronyms, e.g., Dublin Core rather than metadata

Enclose phrases in quotation marks, e.g. "Dewey decimal"

-- Search for websites of associations and other groups that deal with your topic.

Put organizational names in quotation marks if you know the precise name, e.g. "Association for Library Collections and Technical Services"

-- Combine words to make your search more specfic (Boolean logic).

Use AND to be sure that all the terms you enter are present in the retrieved pages, e.g. metadata AND video AND preservation

Use OR to search for synonyms and closely related terms, e.g. taxonomy OR classification.

Use OR to search for variant spellings, e.g. cataloging OR cataloguing

Use more than one strategy in a single search, but do it carefully! Put each strategy in parentheses, e.g., (taxonomy OR classification) AND (books OR documents)

-- Exclude unwanted pages. This is useful when a keyword has several meanings or contexts.

Put a minus sign directly in front of a word you want to exclude, e.g., catalog -mail

-- Look for further tips in the help pages of the resource.

Google Scholar identifies scholarly literature, primarily journal articles.

The full texts of some articles are available freely. Other articles can be accessed for a fee. But many are not available unless you have an online subscription to the journal. Often, these same articles ARE available online through the University Library's subscriptions.

To search for articles and journals at UI search the Online Journals and Databases:

Google Scholar works with the UI's Discover service to display links to full text resources licensed by the University Library. To set this up from the main Google Scholar page

• click on Settings
• search for Urbana in the Library Links section
• check University of Illinois @ Urbana-Champaign-Discover Full Text - Discover Full Text
• click Save Preferences

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