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Thursday, November 18, 2004
Web Search--Google
Big News: "Google Scholar" is Born
By Shirl Kennedy and Gary Price
The world of online "scholarly" research is changing today as Google introduces Google Scholar. This specialized new interface -- which will NOT be linked from Google's main search page -- will allow users to search a treasure chest of "scholarly material."
As you've read here many times, Google is brilliant (that is, ingenious at marketing and trying new things), and this is yet another example of their savvy. This is something that some other large web engine(s) could have done years ago to help separate themselves from other players and also provide a useful service. No one did it. Now, others will likely play catch-up with Google. Basically, users of Google Scholar can, via a single search location, access content from "scholarly" materials found on the OPEN WEB that they've found in the Google crawl of the web. Btw, it might also be time to take another look at what has traditionally thought of as "scholarly" since some of the material in Google Scholar is not "scholarly" using a traditional definition.
Some basic facts:
+ In a nutshell, Google has built an algorithm that makes a calculated guess at *what it thinks* is a scholarly content mined from the OPEN WEB, and then makes it accessible via the Google Scholar interface.
+ Precisely what makes something "scholarly" enough to be included in Google Scholar, Google will not say. And this is not an insignificant omission. Librarians, especially academic librarians, are *always* being asked to provide "scholarly" material, even if customers aren't quite sure what this means. Their instructor told them they needed articles from "scholarly journals," so this is precisely what they ask for at the library. As librarians, we may try to educate them about how "refereed publications" work, but let's face it. What most of these folks really want is to quickly download an appropriate article and beat feet out of the library. And if they think they can get what they need from Google, the odds are slim that they will bother with library resources at all. College students AND professors might not know that library databases exist, but they sure know Google.
The database vendors don't always make it easy for us, either. For example, when searching Gale databases such as InfoTrac OneFile or Expanded Academic ASAP, you see a check box that you can fill in if you want to restrict your search to "refereed publications." How many of our customers know what a "refereed publication" is? Does any instructor ever ask his or her students to find articles from "refereed publications"? What's up with this?
More facts:
+ Material accessible via Google Scholar can also found in the main Google index.
+ Google Scholar results pages *will not contain advertising* -- at least for now.
+ Some examples of material from major publishers who you'll find (we know Google has been working with many) -- Google will not provide us with a complete list, but look for content from ACM, IEEE, and yes, Open Worldcat material from OCLC. We also don't know precisely what is and is not available, date ranges, etc.
* In many cases Google will be crawling and searching the full text of an article but users will either need to have a subscription to the database or pay for access to an individual article.
A bit more from a Google spokesperson:
"...where we have permission to crawl a doc we will do so but will only show an abstract."
+ VERY COOL! For many citations, you'll find a direct link to other articles in the Google Scholar database that cite the article you've selected. Yes, Google Scholar is a citation database too! This reminds me of two specialized databases that focus on specific types of scholarly content accessible on the open web that have been online for many years and remain EXCELLENT tools.
1) CiteSeer (focuses on computer science material, info tech content)
2) SmealSearch (focuses on business material)
+ Some material, let's say from Open Worldcat, isn't always scholarly in the way many people think of it.
For example:
++ Here are many John Grisham books.
++ Although we're honored, we don't consider this blog to be a "scholarly" resource.
++ Academic librarians will be sad to learn that it's impossible to limit to only "peer-reviewed" material.
+ How big is the Google Scholar database? Google isn't saying.
As Google makes this announcement and word spreads about a "scholarly search tool" -- ESPECIALLY in the academic community -- we think the use of specialty databases (the ones university libraries offer and spend $$$ for) will drop. It's worth watching to see if people begin paying for material located via Google Scholar that they can get *free* from a specialty database they may not know is available via their public or academic library.
Might this be a golden opportunity for the library community to tell people -- look, we have access to this stuff and MUCH MUCH MORE? We have better ways to search it, and you might not even have to pay for it? Well, yeah...but if what we've seen in the past is any indication, this is not going to happen. Maybe this time it will be different. Bottom line: It's very difficult to compete with the Google marketing machine. In the meantime, we'll be extremely interested in the response to Google Scholar from fee-based database publishers. Some might ask, are specialized database tools still necessary? Info pros know they are but we sure haven't done a good job of explaining why.
It will also be interesting to see if *any* of the press/chatter about Google Scholar makes even a small mention of specialized subscription databases, free access to these via libraries, and the fact that what Google is offering is merely the tip of the "scholarly" info iceberg.
Is all of this yet another nail in the coffin for library resources and maybe librarians? Too early to tell, of course. Kudos to Google for doing so but the library community could (should?) have done something similar years ago. Why didn't we?
When big announcements come from Google and web engines, we often get nervous and...sometimes upset with our profession. Not this time, however. It's just not worth it. This is BIG news and something that should have been around for years. It's going to be interesting what transpires moving forward.
Finally, specialized databases are still valuable for many types of seaching, including searching for "scholarly material."
Why? A few examples:
+ Limit to material published by date
+ Ability to view more than 1000 results. The Google cutoff of 1000 results is still in place with Google Scholar. Ten term query limit also applies.
+ Google is constantly crawling the web but we don't know how often the Google Scholar database is being refreshed with new content
+ Searching using a controlled vocabulary/subject searching
+ Ability to limit by publisher affiliation
+ You can limit by author with author: but you can only use a last name
First names and initials are searchable when using author: but results are often erratic.
+ Proximity operators
+ Gobs and gobs of content, Google Scholar still doesn't have it all.
Example: While you'llfind John Grisham books, you will NOT find material (both current and archived) from MANY newspapers, trade publications, and general interest periodicals.
+ I'm sure you can add many more examples of what's NOT there
Again, it's one thing for the info pro to understand all of this, it's something else for the typical searcher. Stay tuned, this is going to be interesting.
See Also: Google Plans New Service for Scientists and Scholars
From the article, "While the great majority of recent scholarly papers and periodicals are indexed on the Web, many have not been easily accessible to the public." This is again an example of not understanding that libraries -- public, private, and, academic - - have offered access to databases with this content for many years and that they can be accessed without having to visit the library building.
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