Google Scholar – Reference at Newman Library

OneSearch Tip: Using Citation Trails

In many (but not all) records for journal articles in OneSearch, you’ll find one or more red arrow icons that let you run a new search to find either records for the sources cited in that article or records for sources that have cited the article you’ve found. This ability to navigate in either direction along the chain of citations is similar to what you can do in Web of Science or in Google Scholar. While this feature will aid in the discovery of related items, if you’re looking for an authoritative and more comprehensive source of citation data, Web of Science is the place to go.

In the brief record display that you see in search results pages, some records will feature none of the icons, some will fill feature one of the icons, and others will have both. Here is a screenshot showing two records in the search results where one record has one icon and the other has both:

If you mouse over the icons, you’ll see tool tips that explain what each icon does:

Icon with two arrows pointing up = “find sources citing this”
Icon with one arrow pointing down = “find sources cited in this”

If you click through to the full record for journal article record, at the bottom of the page, you’ll see the icons repeated along with explanation of what each one does:

This page of documentation in the Ex Libris Knowledge Base explains where the citation data comes from and which citations are actually visible when you run searches using the citation trail icons:

Primo currently matches the metadata provided by CrossRef with the records in PC (Primo Central) to build the citation trails. Only records that belong to the collections that your institution has activated in PC will appear in the lists.

Setting Up Google Scholar to Link to Our Full Text

As we moved to Alma in August, we also switched the link resolver system that powers the “Find it @ CUNY” button in databases and the “Find Full Text at Baruch” links that appear in Google Scholar search results like these:

Anyone who wants to use the “Find Full Text at Baruch” feature in Google Scholar will have to change any settings they’ve saved in Google Scholar or start from scratch as follows.

STEP 1: On the Google Scholar home page, click the menu icon in the top left corner and then choose “Settings”

STEP 2: On the settings page, select “Library Links” and then run a search for “baruch” in the search box.

STEP 3: If the search results show 3 listings, select the middle one only and then click the “Save” button.

Background on the problem

In time, there should be only one listing for Baruch in the library links settings. Right now, we’re in a transitional period with our systems and are still waiting for Google Scholar to recognize that we’re about to retire the old SFX link resolver (which is behind the first of the three listings in the library links).

Google Scholar Blog

Finding out how Google Scholar works is a bit tricky, as Google is loathe to release too many details about how the service works. One window in to the inner workings can be found by looking at the posts on the Google Scholar Blog, the official blog from Google about the service. Some notable posts from the past year include:

If you direct students and faculty to Google Scholar, please make sure you tell them to use the link to it on our A-Z databases page. Our link is customized so that it automatically does the “Library links” settings in Google Scholar to indicate the searcher is from Baruch, which then ensures that a “Find Full Text at Baruch” link appears next to article that we have access to.

New Feature in Google Scholar: Query Suggestions

Google Scholar now provides at the bottom of search results pages a list of suggested queries. See for example the suggestions for “social informatics.”

In this announcement on the Google Scholar Blog, the developers don’t explain how the query suggestion system works but do mention that they will be expanding the range of terms that trigger suggestions.

Getting to Full Text Via Google Scholar

You probably already know that if you use the link to Google Scholar on our databases page, even if you are off campus, you can force Google Scholar to display a “Find Full Text at Baruch” link next to items on your search results page:

Sometimes, though, the link for “Find Full Text at Baruch” isn’t there to the right of the article record, as is the case for the article “Why Ravens Share” from American Scientist seen in this screenshot.

The article record does seem to suggest that full text is on JSTOR, but as it turns out we don’t have access to it there. We do in fact have access to it from two different EBSCO databases. Here’s the secret to how to find that out.

After you click “All 2 versions,” you see two different listings for the same article, the second of which has the link we want:

Web of Science and Google Scholar Partnership Adds New Functionality

If you are looking at an article record in Web of Science, you’ll now see a link that is labeled “Look up full-text” and has the Google Scholar icon in front of it:

That link is just to the right of a blue button that says “Full Text” (clicking the latter sends you to our Find It service, aka SFX). Here’s a screenshot of an article record that shows the placement of the new Google Scholar link:

What’s even more useful and interesting about this partnership between Google Scholar and Web of Science is that if you are on campus (or you are off campus but have authenticated yourself via the proxy server), you will now see in Google Scholar citation counts from Web of Science. Here is a screenshot of an article in Google Scholar that shows the Web of Science citation counts:

If you click that Web of Science link in a Google Scholar record, you’ll be taken into Web of Science and show the list of articles that cite the one you found in Google Scholar.

All of this magic works effortlessly on campus. If you are off campus, you’ll first need to be logged into our proxy server. While having the Google Scholar link in Web of Science is interesting, it’s far more likely that the Web of Science citation counts and links in the Google Scholar interface will be of use to our students and faculty.

I do wish that Web of Science had thought of a better label in their interface to Google Scholar; it’s confusing in Web of Science to have the “Full Text” link to our SFX service right next to a link to Google Scholar that’s labeled “Look up full-text” (which is really what the “Full Text” does).

Google Scholar Now Lets You Save Citations

If you are logged into your Google account when you are searching in Google Scholar, you can now save your citations in the new “My Library” feature. Details on this new feature can be found on the Google Scholar Blog.

If you do happen to use Google Scholar or recommend it to students and faculty, make sure you go to the link on our Databases page for it, as that one is set up so that our “Find It” links will appear next to citations that we have full text for and so that our remote login system is activated if the user is off campus (see this 2012 blog post for details on our setup).

Format Citations from Google Scholar Search Results

Google announced today a new feature that lets you format a citation for items on your Google Scholar search results page. Just look for the link “Cite” that appears in the snippet of text below the article:

If you click “Cite,” you get a new window with citations for that item in MLA, APA, and Chicago formats as well as options to export the citation into various citation management systems (e.g, RefWorks, EndNote, etc.)

Google Scholar Now Listed on Databases Page

We’ve recently added Google Scholar to our list of databases on the library website and in the set of reusable database links in LibGuides. After looking at the database listings for 66 schools (all the libraries in CUNY, SUNY, the CIC, and the Cal State and UC systems), we found that 48 of those institutions had Google Scholar on their A-Z database lists.

Given that many of our students and faculty already use Google Scholar, we decided that it was worth adding so that we can ensure that our users get the most out it. With that in mind, we created a special link to it that runs the user through our EZproxy system AND sets up the Google Scholar advanced preferences option so that our users will see links to SFX next to most items on the search results page.

As you can see from this screenshot, Google Scholar won’t display the usual “Find It” icon we see in our library databases but instead offers a link labeled “Find Full Text at Baruch.”

Legal materials added to Google Scholar

Resource Shelf covers the addition of legal materials to Google Scholar at http://www.resourceshelf.com/2009/11/17/federal-and-state-legal-opinions-along-with-patent-info-added-to-google-scholar/ . The advanced search option allows targeted searching by jurisdiction and type of document (federal or state case, patent, article). As noted by Resource Shelf, many of these materials are already available on the web (Justia offers federal cases linked to Pacer dockets and there are several free sources for patents, including the U.S. Patent Office) but now these materials are part of the Google Scholar database. Google Scholar is also linking to materials (e.g. law review articles) in propriety databases, including Lexis and HeinOnline.