Bertrand FAQ

Google Scholar is a good resource for finding scholarly research and information across a range of disciplines. There are some distinct advantages, however, to searching library databases in addition to Google Scholar.

We subscribe to a number of discipline-specific databases, and searching them can narrow your results to provide the most relevant information for your subject. Google Scholar does not provide a way to search within a specific subject or discipline.

In addition, while you can limit your Google Scholar search by date and to certain publications, you can’t limit the search to peer-reviewed, scholarly content. Library databases offer all of these options and a wide array of additional limiters. 

For example, if you search in an education database, you can choose limiters that allow you to focus your results on specific grade levels. In Scholar, you would need to use one or multiple keywords to ensure that you limited your results to precisely the grade levels you wanted to focus on. 

While Google Scholar is a great place to start searching for scholarly material, searching the library’s databases is likely a more efficient way to search, particularly if you need scholarly, peer-reviewed sources. 

If you need help deciding which databases to use, start with the Research by Subject guide for your subject area. You can also make an appointment for a research consultation.