Are you a fan of Google Scholar, Google’s tool for searching for journal articles and other scholarly materials?  If so, don’t use plain old Google Scholar. Rather, use the library’s customized version, available in the Databases tab on the library homepage and on the library’s alphabetical list of databases.  The GC-customized version knows the library’s electronic journal holdings and links you directly to the articles in the library’s databases.  (If you’re off campus, you’ll be prompted to log in with your GC credentials before you can access library subscriptions.)  It’s a great way to save time and avoid publisher paywalls.

Also, Google Scholar is currently the single best tool for finding open access versions of journal articles.  If an article is freely available — on the publisher’s site, on the author’s homepage, or in a disciplinary or institutional repository — Google Scholar will usually find it.

How many articles are freely available online?  Probably more than you realize!  For example, the NIH funds over $30 billion of health research annually, and it requires that articles resulting from NIH-funded research be made open access in PubMed Central within a year of publication.  And very soon, many more federal agencies will have similar requirements: in February, the Obama administration directed federal agencies with research and development expenditures over $100 million to develop similar policies about the research they fund!

Whether an article is open access or locked up in a library database, the GC-customized version of Google Scholar can lead you to it!