As cuts mount, those used to one-click searching are in for a shock

I've never been convinced that most students need access to vast databases of academic articles. Certainly in subjects in health studies, most undergraduates would probably do fine with a couple of standard textbooks and a small library of supporting literature, plus the reports, guidelines, etc., that government departments and societies offer. Too much choice simply confuses them - despite the best efforts of librarians to educate them.

one of the steps in giving the first lecture in any module used to be to provide a list pf required andrecommended reading. I would usually take the books to the lecture to explai how they related to the content. As these were recommended texts the library would have them in stock, and have copies in the reserve collection. I also providedstudent a list of those online resources that were worth knowing. The same was part of my induction process for new phD students, though the latter were expected to look more widely. In terms of authoratative startng points, there is still much to be said for the library card catalogue indexed by subject terms. If that failed, the best source of advice was usually the well-informed subject librarian, who was aware of coursepatterns and student struggles and could usually identify from memory which part of these tacks had the best materials. [ "top floor bottom of third shelf, about half way along..."] Unfortunately these [cars and subject librarians ] are now few and far between in the rush to populate libraries with terminals to give the appearance of being "relevant". Oh brave new world.

I find Google Scholar often gives links to university websites/ repositories as well as journals, which is really useful if your institution doesn't take a particular journal. For students I think reading lists for books/ articles work well for many courses, but for dissertations/ research you need to go wider.

Maybe I am lucky or maybe it's what my offspring calls my "black belt in google-fu" but I rarely have difficulty in finding whatever I am looking for when conducting a Google search. I do ignore the AI generated claptrap and check sources, though...