Databases - comparison

LubSearch

Google Scholar

Business Source Complete

Scopus

Contents

Books, e-books, encyclopedias, journal and magazine articles and more within all disciplines from Lund University library collections

Links to journal articles and books within all disciplines.

References to academic articles, trade journal articles, market and company information

References to scholarly articles within all disciplines.

Scholarly/non scholarly

Both. Possible to limit search to peer reviewed sources (=mainly academic articles)

Both

Both. Possible to limit search to peer reviewed sources (=mainly academic articles)

Scholarly

Pros

Broad scope.

Good place to start.

Possibility to limit (filter) searches.

Easy to search.

Possibility to use different search strategies, e.g. citation searching and searching for related documents

Good if you want to limit your search to business and management sources.

Information on companies and markets (e.g reports from MarketLine)

Possibility to use different search strategies, e.g. citation searching, looking for references and searching for related documents.

Mainly academic sources

Cons

Sometimes too broad

Very broad (needle in a haystack-effect)

Despite the name also contains non-scholarly sources like student theses.

Risk of missing relevant sources due to limit to business and management sources.

Tips

Click “cite” to get citation information according to different reference standards.

Limit to review articles to get overview of topic

Limit to source types

Analyze search results to get overview of topic in Scopus and to see documents by year, author etc.

Limit to subject area or document type (e.g. review) to filter results.