Alternatives to Google Scholar

Abstract

This InfoBit talk introduces several freely available alternatives to the popular and widely used scholarly search engine Google Scholar that can be used for research purposes. The presentation first summarizes what options the students or researchers at the University of Malta have in terms of information resources. Next, an objective critique of Google Scholar is offered, underlining both its strong and weak points. Lastly, the so-called metadata aggregators are introduced, along with four prime examples: Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (BASE), Connecting Repositories (CORE), Paperity.org and DART-Europe.