33 Academic Search Engines

When it comes to academic research, Google is not the answer. Too many students feel that as long as they have Google, everything will be fine. When I ask them if Google will evaluate a web site to see if it can be trusted, they pause for a minute and say "no".  Doing research online can be a daunting experience for both teachers and students, which is why you need to use search engines which are specific to academia. Here's a list of 33 to get you and your students started.




Academic Info-subject guide descriptions provide relevant sites.

Archival Research Catalog- U.S. National Archives

BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)- over 29 million documents

BiologyBrowser

Bubl- selected Internet resources covering all academic areas.

Chemxseer- "documents in the chemistry domain"


Citeulike- search over 5 million articles

The Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies- computer-science related information 

EBSCOHost- if you are fortunate to have this wonderful resource, (our state library provides it for us) you will find the History Reference Center, Science Reference Center, Literary Reference Center, Student Research Center and much, much more.

ERIC (Educational Resource Information Center)- "online digital library of education research and information"

Food Science Central- "world's largest database of information on food science, food technology and nutrition. " 

Google Scholar

History Engine- research historical topics

Infomine- annotated academic sites and subject databases

Infotopia- educator selected sites

Intute- annotated academic sites

IPL- information you can trust

iSeek Education- search a topic or ask a question

JURN- search 4,303 free e-journals in the arts & humanities

LibGuides Community- over 100,000 pathfinders from thousands of libraries

Library of Congress- search for primary source documents, including photos, maps, manuscripts, historic newspapers and much more

MathWeb Search- search for formulas 

NASA Historical Archive

PsycLine- psychology and social science journals

RefSeek- (currently in public beta) search over 1 billion documents, web pages, encyclopedias, journals, newspapers

Scirus- scientific information

The Smithsonian Institution Research Information System- "Search over 7.4 million records, with 568,100 images, video and sound files from Smithsonian museums, archives, and libraries."

SurfWax- search your topic and find similar, broader or narrower ones

Science.gov- "over 45 databases and over 2000 selected websites from 14 federal agencies"

Sweet Search- selective searches for students

Virtual Learning Resources Center- browse the 12 category directory or use a Google custom search 

WikiArc- archaeological searches 

World-Wide Science- international scientific databases