1. Google scholar is a reliable search tool to browse/access [some of] the academic literature. Is it the best free tool we have? Well, it's really the only general free tool for academic literature that we have, in an easy-to-use familiar interface.
2. Between regular (or Mother) Google and Google scholar, all websites, journal publishers crawled and made searchable - endusers can search about 100,000,000,000 items (yes, billion) discreet files, pages and journal articles. (On the academic side only, I'd guess that Google scholar searches around 500 million items).
3. Google scholar is a handy tool to locate [some of] the open-access and grey literature. However, its American-bias is unfortunate, and its quality controls need improvement. (This is where librarians need to focus their efforts in teaching.)
4. Google scholar provides access to unique content not in other search tools. (Unfortunately, searchers are advised to try both Google & Google scholar because there is unique academic content in both.)
5. Google scholar is still free and openly-accessible. It is now a part of the academic librarian's toolbox (but requires contextualization for end-users to understand its limitations.)
Google Scholar
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