Library Research Guide for Graduate Students in Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

1. Find It @OSU  
2. Check Google Scholar
   • Put the title of the article between quotation marks and/or add the author name to search by DOI
   • Enable Find It @OSU (in Scholar Preferences) to make sure Google Scholar connects to OSU licensed resources
3. Try regular Google for difficult-to-find citations
   • Use the same techniques you used for Google Scholar (title in quotation marks, add author name)
   • Many articles are posted online as a pdf, combine your search terms with: filetype:pdf
4. Search by DOI in the Online Journal list
5. Try sites like Researchgate, Academia etc.
6. Use Article Express
7. Find the author’s homepage or personal website (combine name with terms like ‘university’ or ‘homepage’). Or try the author’s university repository (usually can be found on their university’s library website)
8. Email the author

Licensed online library resources are restricted from viewing outside the campus network. There are several ways to access licensed resources from off-campus.

Use the off-campus sign-in through the library homepage for the most reliable way to access licensed resources from off-campus. You will be prompted for your name.# and password. 

Publishers/vendors may permit access directly from their website with Ohio State credentials in which case you can use proxy authentication to access the resource. Place this string at the beginning of the vendor’s URL: https://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?qurl=http://[vendor’s URL. Example: https://proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/login?qurl=http://www.scopus.com/home.url. You will be prompted for your name.# and password.

After graduation from Ohio State you will no longer have access to Library electronic databases and most online journals from off campus. Access to materials is always available by coming to a campus library and using a guest computer (request guest account at circulation desk). 

As Ohio resident, you can request a State Library Card from the State Library of Ohio and check out OhioLINK materials at any OhioLINK library.

You may be able to take advantage of your local public library for interlibrary loan. You may be able to request materials from research libraries and have them delivered to your local public library at little or no charge. Many public libraries also offer remote access to databases, ebooks, and periodicals to library card holders.

An increasing number of journals are published open access. Use Unpaywall, Open Access Button or DOAJ to find freely available scholarly resources.

You can also try free-full text archives, such as PubMed Central or PubAg or preprint servers, such as bioRxiv, agriRxiv, SocArXiv, or ArXiv.

Google Scholar is a freely accessible web search engine by Google that indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature across an array of publishing formats and disciplines. The Google Scholar index includes most peer-reviewed online academic journals and books, conference papers, theses and dissertations, preprints, abstracts, technical reports, and other scholarly literature, including court opinions and patents. Use Google Scholar to find scholarly articles and books, verify citations, and explore related resources. 

Important note: Setting Ohio State University in Scholar Preferences will help you make direct connections to online sources provided by the library. In your search results, you can connect to a full-text version if there is a linked option following the item’s title. If you’ve enabled Ohio State Library links (Settings > Library links > "The Ohio State University Libraries", a Find It @OSU link is shown to provide a link to full-text or to help you request the item if it’s not available online via interlibrary services. 

Google Scholar search tips can be found here.