Google Scholar
Although it's not a Harvard Library "database," Google Scholar is perfectly acceptable for most general forays into scholarship; its algorithms are excellent and because it searches full-text, it will sometimes help you to identify some recent and relevant scholarship quite efficiently.
One of the best ways to generate research leads with Scholar is to use it to follow citation trails when you have a known source -- a class reading, a book you've found on HOLLIS that looks promising, an article that's so "perfect" for a research project that you want to see if there's "more like it" out there, waiting to be discovered.
For example:
- You can click on cited by to see which scholars picked up and used a research article/book in research. Just enter the title.
- Big "cited by" lists can be whittled down by adding keywords and clicking on the search within cited references option.
- Related articles helps you identify research that's close --algorithmically,at least -- to the item you started with.
See also: Getting Around Paywalls on the Web tells you how to tweak Google Scholar settings so you can identify Harvard access.
