Your first instinct might be to search the Internet using Google or another search engine. While you can certainly find useful resources on the Internet, it's important to understand how to use it in research and why it should not be your only stop. For scholarly, academic, or class-related research, a combination of library and web resources usually produces the best results. Here are a few points to keep in mind:
Good Information is Usually Not Available for Free – Most intellectual content in journal articles, conference proceedings and books is protected by copyright law and is therefore typically not available for free. Publishers and information creators often require that users pay a fee for individual articles or purchase subscriptions or memberships in order to access content.
Not everything is on the Internet – If you rely on the Web for all your research, you are at best only searching about a quarter of all information produced.
The Web can be a "Noisy" Untrustworthy Place – Many websites pay for the privilege to be rated higher or more relevant in search results. This means that a website with better content might not show up on your first page of results. Google and other search engines customize your search results based on your activity on the web. This means that your results might not include all views on a topic.
We recommend starting your research with Summon, a discovery service used to search multiple library resources and databases in a single search.
Searching is as easy as
Search: enter your search terms
Refine: use the filters and facets on the left side of your search results.
Get: click on an item to access it
