Teaching Google Scholar: A Practical Guide for Librarians

by Paige Alfonzo (Author)

Review
An incredibly valuable addition to the Practical Guides series, Alfonzo's Teaching Google Scholar is a must read for (actually) any librarian, but especially for those focusing on information literacy (academic, school and public libraries,) those involved in their own research as well as for any e-resource librarian seeking broad curated content to expand opportunities for resources for constituents. And although many librarians don't consider "scholarly" content their first priority, Scholar resources go far beyond more traditional scholarly materials and include thousands of resources, papers and reviews of materials appropriate for a broad audience. Finally, Alfonzo's inclusion of instructions for customizing use and information literacy curriculum and a particular emphasis on case law and patent content along with ways to use the discovery process for citation analysis make it particularly valuable. This should be required reading for those seeking expert information literacy competencies. (Julie Todaro, 2016-2017 President, American Library Association and Dean of Library Services, Austin Community College)

This well-structured, comprehensive, current, information rich book is an excellent guide and model for courses to educate librarians and end-users to learn the best content and software features of Google Scholar. (Peter Jacso, Professor, Library & Information Science Program, University of Hawaii)

About the Author
Paige Alfonzo received her MS in Library Science from the University of North Texas and B.A. in English from Texas State University. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Denver studying Research Methods and Statistics. Previously she worked as an academic reference librarian at the rank of assistant professor at the University of Mary-Hardin Baylor. She specializes in qualitative and mixed methods analysis, social media research, and information literacy instruction.