Skip to Main Content

Using Google Scholar

Ask a Librarian

Chat

Chat loading...

Email

refdesk@uwgb.edu

Appointment

Book a consultation

Google Scholar is a search engine of scholarly literature. It includes citations to journal articles, books, theses/dissertations, technical reports, patents, and legal materials.

Below you will find instructions for connecting Google Scholar to UW-Green Bay Library resources.

Strengths & Weaknesses

Google Scholar is popular and free to use, but it does have some drawbacks. Consider some of these pros and cons.

Strengths

  • Is easy to use to start exploring a topic
  • Searches across disciplines (multidisciplinary)
  • Show related works and citations

Weaknesses

  • Lacks advanced search features that are common in library databases, like filters
  • Includes mixed quality of sources, including articles that are not peer reviewed
  • Does not include full text access to all articles

Accessing Full Text

While Google Scholar links to open access (freely available) content when it is available, many scholarly sources are behind paywalls and require payment or a subscription to access. Fortunately, you can use UW-Green Bay Library to access these articles.

There are two ways you can streamline access to content you find in Google Scholar: adjusting your settings in Google Scholar or by downloading the free LibKey Nomad browser extension.

Connect Google Scholar Settings to UW-Green Bay

If you are on-campus, Google Scholar should already include links to UW-Green Bay Libraries content.

Off-campus users will need to follow these steps to set this up:

  1. Go to the Google Scholar website: https://scholar.google.com/
  2. Under the menu icon in the upper-left, select Settings
    This image shows the menu, which includes my profile, my library, alerts, metrics, advanced search, and settings, that appears when the settings icon has been clicked.
  3. Choose Library Links, type in UW-Green Bay, and search
    This image shows the list of options available once settings has been clicked, and there is a red arrow pointing to the library-links option.
  4. Check the UW-Green Bay Box and click Save
    This image has a red arrow pointing to the UW-Green Bay box that needs to be checked.

You have now connected content from UW-Green Bay Libraries to Google Scholar!

When searching in Google Scholar, look for the Find It @ UWGB link to see if UW-Green Bay Libraries provide access to the content. Sometimes you will need to click on the "more" link at the end of an entry OR "all versions" to see the link.
This image shows the Find It @ UWGB options on the right-hand side of the search results.

LibKey Nomad Extension for Full Text

To install LibKey Nomad on your personal computer:

  1. Go to Download LibKey Nomad.
  2. Select your browser. LibKey Nomad works with Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Safari, Brave, and Vivaldi.
  3. Follow the prompts to install the extension.
  4. Once it's installed, search for University of Wisconsin - Green Bay and select it as your organization.