Academic Search Engines & Directories | Research Keys, Part 2

Research Keys is a series of blog posts which will cover essential resources on search engines and information intelligence; directories and sites for kids, K-12 and university students; global search sites for jobs and travel; multimedia search engines; online library guides; content-rich subject guides by educators and professionals; resources by foundations, universities and governments; open access repositories; content curation sites; similar sites - their application in research; free Excel tutorials; global and European research scholarship websites. Although the focus is clearly on research, many of the resources are useful for business and individual targeted search (e.g. competitive intelligence sites; sites for jobs and travel; library guides and content-rich websites provide information in many areas and the websites are freely accessible; Excel resources)

Research Keys, Part 2 is a compilation of useful academic search engines and sites. You will access specialty sources and repositories, online journals, real-time news, images, references, tips on finding and narrowing a topic. Most of the articles were written by librarians working for online education blogs


The Academic section of the Search Engine Colossus - the International Directory of Search Engines - provides around 15 links, among which The Environmental Directory, the Climate Ark and the First Nation Seeker. In addition, the directory includes other thematic engines and engines in many languages for various countries

Education-related websites by the Search Engine Guide; Reference related topics by the SEG; Science Directory of the SEG

The Best Reference Sites Online by About.com directory, links to many related pages

Choose the Best Search for Your Information Need by Noodle Tools. This guide is also functioning as an interactive one - you can quickly check which websites to use according to your present research.  Noodle Tools also provides the service of a reference manager

A Short Guide to Free Academic Search by JURN- the Search Engine of Open Access Journals in the Arts & Humanities. It is similar to the previous one but is oriented to students in the UK in the arts and humanities. Several repositories in a number of languages other than English are included as well as a section on images. The guide is frequently updated

33 Academic Search Engines gathered by Julie Greller on her blog A Media Specialist's Guide to the Internet. Be sure also to check the Reference tools page which lists dictionaries, almanacs, encyclopedias and primary sources

100 Time-Saving Search Engines for Serious Scholars were collected by the Online Universities Blog. The guide is comprehensive and spans from general and meta search to information specific to various academic areas

20 Useful Specialty Search Engines for College Students by Best Online Universities Blog comprises a list of engines, library tools and archives

100 Useful Niche Search Engines to Focus and Finetune Your Academic Research were gathered by College at Home. You will find resources in health and law but also extracurricular websites, travel guides, quick answers and visual search engines

100 Useful Tips and Tools to Research the Deep Web  by Online College Blog – aside from academic and scientific engines, the list includes meta-search engines,semantic search tools and custom engines for narrow topics

Resources by Marcus Zillman, eSolutions Architect & Internet Expert: student research resources and academic and scholar search engines and sources; some other subject resources (health, biology, statistics, finance) and a very useful tutorials link compilation

99 Resources to Research and Mine the Invisible Web by College Degree (quoted by Zillman)

Research Beyond Google: 119 Comprehensive Resources – a post by the Online Education Database Online

HLWIKI: a wiki with portals on health librarianship, social media and a range of information technology topics curated by Canadian health librarians. Here are some of their resourceful health-related pages: (1)health specific search tools, (2)bioinformatics, (3)drug information – print & online sources, (4)medical podcasts and videocasts, (5)health 2.0 (including social networking resources) - web 2.0 tools for patients’ independent or additional use; and here are some general (not only health-related) library & scholar pages: (1)open search tools, (2)open data, (3)Google Scholar bibliography, (4)library 2.0 bibliography, (5)social media aggregators

Freeality Reference and Research Section, I learned about the website via the HubPages article

Search engines and guides at Lib Guides community; examples - search engines by the San Antonio College; internet resources by subject by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Links and Lists by John Royce, library director of Robert College, Istanbul – a compilation of articles/lists on online libraries, free online textbooks and other books, guides for citation and invisible web sources; some of the websites are no longer active but the lists are still very informative

Wikipedia List of Academic Databases and Search Engines and online encyclopedias

Wikipedia’s List of Online Reference Desks - probably the most useful Wikipedia page. You can find links to directories of books but also dictionaries, digital libraries, Q & A forums, French and Italian directories, student guides, how to use Wikipedia, search tools for twitter, etc.

How to use WIKIPEDIA - writing and editing articles; browsing pages; search tools; citing: start with Wikipedia Basic Information and Wikipedia’s Missing Manual written by John Broughton, an experienced Wikipedia editor, read particularly the Reader’s Guide: an overview of Wikipedia, its sister projects and a guide on how to navigate; browse Wikipedia’s Categories or thematic portals; Search Tools for Wikipedia: how to refine your search using the internal search engine and here are some additional search tools; and external search engines (search tools/engines; difference between internal and external search); Wikipedia Reference Desk works like a library reference desk: you can ask questions and they should be answered by volunteers within several days; Citing Wikipedia pages; Download Wikipedia for Offline Use; explore Wikipedia FAQ Index

50 Cool Search Engines for Serious Readers – links to e-book and library sites compiled by Online Colleges (June 2012); not all of the links lead to free e-books, some relate to finding paid books, pdf search engines and book reviews

The Best Websites for Watching Free Documentaries – an article written by Lori Kaufman (July 2012) and published on How-To Geek

The Best Websites for Finding, Downloading, Borrowing, Renting, and Purchasing eBooks - an article written by Lori Kaufman (July 2012) and published on How-To Geek

The 100 Best (And Free) Online Learning Tools - an article by Edudemic

J-Gate Newsletter, a service of Informatics India, is an insightful source for information on scientific journals and information management. The monthly newsletter (archives at the bottom of the page) covers open access (new OA journals, OA databases; many of the new OA journals/data sets are in the fields of life sciences/medicine), search tips and research advice to students and scientists. See for instance the article Boolean Search Logic - the Need for Revisiting the Basics written by Sridhar in May 2012; more similar articles can be found in the search tips section in 2011 archives; see also J-Gate list of e-books by scientific providers

For more information on research resources, see my blog posts on open access textbooks and learning materials and writing resources

If you are a foreign language learner or educator, you may find useful my post on free online language resources 

If you want to find more information about search engines, read my recent post on search engines and information intelligence

The post was updated on 19/07/2012