The strength of BartonPlus is its broad coverage of articles, books, and book chapters across many disciplines. It's similar in scope to Google Scholar, but also searches our library catalog.
You should use it when:
- You need articles on a topic, and there isn't a specialty literature database for your subject area or field, or you don't know if there is. Find a specialty database using our Research Guides or Ask Us.
- You want to do an interdisciplinary search for your topic.
- You just need a few books and articles on a topic and you want to quickly search in one place.
- You are looking for a specific book or article you already know about.
You shouldn't use it when:
- You want books or other materials that MIT doesn't own - use MIT's WorldCat to find and request.
- You want to take advantage of specific features of specialty databases, such as a thesaurus (many databases) or the "times cited" feature (Scopus, Web of Science).
- You want to limit your search to a specific field or subject area - use a specialty database instead.
- You are seeking specialized content (such as images, datasets, GIS data).
For more options on where to search, see Get books, articles & more from MIT and non-MIT libraries.