search engines are about as easy as it gets, at least as far as searching for available things. searching on library of congress id for published works about the only thing worse than a google site dump. certainly a step up from library index cards, microfiche, and/or writing a snail mail letter to a university department for list of deparment thesis papers.

library congress on-line stuff : https://eresources.loc.gov https://eresources.loc.gov/search~S9/m?SEARCH=Dissertation

"normalize" electronic data : https://sindice.com