Google currently offers a variety of options for searching in the text of print resources. You may want to compare these results to some of the other options available, such as Google: Book Search or Google: Scholar. Be sure to look at how the search terms display in the search box, and also how the URLs look. You can use any of these as models for your own searches.

• Example One: Matrix Metalloproteinases
  • Google: Book Search (the service previously known as GooglePrint, to search in books): Search in books for "matrix metalloproteinases"
  • compare to:
  • Google: Search For Books (original version, to search for books): Search for books about "matrix metalloproteinases"
  • compare to:
  • Google: Scholar: Search for articles about "matrix metalloproteinases".

• Example Two: Cone Beam CT
  • Google Web Search: cone beam CT (n=59,900)
  • Google: Book Search: cone beam CT (n=201 pages of books)
  • Google: Search For Books: cone beam CT (n=610 "books")
  • Google: Scholar: cone beam CT (n=1210 articles)
• Example Three: Thomas Kuhn
  • Google Web Search: Thomas Kuhn (n=11,600,000)
  • Google: Book Search: Thomas Kuhn (n=33,500 pages of books)
  • Google: Search For Books: Thomas Kuhn (n=2,090,000 "books")
  • Google: Scholar: Thomas Kuhn (n=55,200 references)
• Example Four: Civil War
  • Google: Book Search: Civil War
  • Google: Book Search: War Between the States
  • Google: Book Search: War of the Rebellion
  • Google: Book Search: war between union confederacy
  • Google: Search For Books: Civil War
  • Google: Scholar: Civil War
  • [Wikipedia: Naming the American Civil War]

Searching for Libraries

Open WorldCat is a free publicly accessible database that shows what libraries have what books around the world -- "more than 50,000 libraries in 90-plus countries."

The A9 search engine, from Amazon and friends, offers what librarians call "federated searching" or "metasearching" in web parlance. They have made this configurable by the user with login, with a variety of options ("columns"). Some of the custom options include searching holdings for libraries, and a variety of special databases.

• For "amazon", A9 found
  • Web: n=72,328,329
  • Books n=44,084
  • PubMed: n=1,460
  • RedLightGreen (RLG): n=341
  • Aleph (Test Database): n=10
  • Reference = Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Mythology, WordNet, Wikipedia, Translations. Other matching topics: Amazon.com (technology); Amazon River (river, Peru and Brazil); Amazon Rainforest; Amazon (automobile); Amazon (band)
• For "Robert Frost", A9 found
  • Web: n=638,523
  • Books n=63,825
  • MAGIC (MSU's Libraries): n=219
  • MELVYL (California Digital Library): n=421
  • RedLightGreen (RLG): n=285
  • Reference = Personalities, Dictionary, Encyclopedia, Works, Literature, American History, WordNet, Wikipedia.

Searching for Print: Other Strategies

Search your topic normally, but limiting to a site that supplies electronic versions of the type of print resource you want. Here are just a very few examples.

• Bartleby: [your term] site:.bartleby.com
• FindArticles: [your term] site:.findarticles.com
• FreeMedicalJournals: [your term] site:freemedicaljournals.com
• HighWire Press: [your term] site:highwire.stanford.edu
• iBiblio: [your term] site:.ibiblio.org
• The Online Books Page (no fulltext search): [author or title words] site:.onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu
• Perseus Digital Library (classical & renaissance texts): [your term] site:.perseus.tufts.edu
• Project Gutenberg: [your term] site:gutenberg.org
• Scirus, for scientific information only [search directly in site]
• Soople (Select: Search in multiple sites at once, choose "Books")
• WikiBooks
• WikiSource

Search collections of recommended academic sources (search directly in site).

• CiteULike
• CiteSeer
• Connotea

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