Comments on: Google Scholar

By: Dennis G. Jerz

Dennis G. Jerz — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 22:42:47 +0000

I find Google Scholar will be very useful for curious people who are Googling in search of connections, or as a way of seeking inspiration. Students who don’t know how to interpret the results will be attracted by the citation results, frustrated by the dead ends (when Google accumulates PageRank for offline objects that have merely been cited by online sources). Still, I’ve told my students for year now, “Don’t use Google for academic research, because it doesn’t search academic databases.” Now it does… somewhat. I’ve blogged a longer review for anyone who’s interested, but in general anyone who deals with information literacy is going to have to rewrite their Google lecture. My review: http://jerz.setonhill.edu/weblog/permalink.jsp?id=2945

By: agm

agm — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 21:20:47 +0000

I haven’t used an online index in years, they’re just too clumsy in getting the job done. Google was been superior to any index for my needs for years now (I’ve never needed to go to the library for ISI). And it pulled up papers that the respective journal’s search engines couldn’t find, one of which is 40 years old!

By: Omri

Omri — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 04:03:41 +0000

I’m discovering that scholarly Google whacking is a lot mroe fun than the ordinary variety.

By: taak

taak — Fri, 19 Nov 2004 00:06:45 +0000

Wow, you just made my day. Love, A person w/o access to an academic library

By: alkali

alkali — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 22:54:34 +0000

Hours and hours of fun to be had! Erratum: for “fun” read “seething envy interspersed with schadenfreude”

By: chun the unavoidable

chun the unavoidable — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:51:00 +0000

It’s, at least in my field, so far from having even a significant sample that I must spit on your technofetishismery.

By: Brian Weatherson

Brian Weatherson — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:34:43 +0000

I know ISI Web of Science is available, but frankly it’s a pain to use (try searching for all the papers by someone with a last name like Smith or Jones) and slow. This is convenient and fast – and free. If I’m doing serious research where I really need to know what is covered where, I’ll use ISI. For everyday purposes, I’ll use Google.

By: Jacob T. Levy

Jacob T. Levy — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:34:39 +0000

Never mind what I just said; it was based on only doing author searches. Now I’ve played around for another few minutes and get why this is much cooler than SSCI…

By: Jacob T. Levy

Jacob T. Levy — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:29:01 +0000

‘sfunny—I was just reading a paper this morning complaining about the sometimes-apparently-arbitrary decisions SSCI makes about which journals to include and which to exclude, and the skewed effects such exclusions can have. The paper speculates about possible solutions—and never mentions googlifying the whole process. (I hadn’t thought of it either, though I’ve used targeted google searches on citation hunts in the past.) Presumably there are decisions buried somewhere in here as well about what’s in and what’s out; but it does at least create an alternative with which to compare SSCI. That said, so far I’m not sure google’s improved on SSCI. It’s a little easier to start the search, and the interface is friendlier—but, at least until the links through to the citing papers are activated, I think SSCI is on net superior.

By: Jim Henley

Jim Henley — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 21:15:04 +0000

All together now: The ranking algorithm just means that the citation rich get richer, while the citation-poor get poorer! Make Google_scholar a public utility!

By: conan the librarian

conan the librarian — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 20:33:41 +0000

Have you ever used a citation index, like ISI’s Web of Science? This is just a googlification of that tool, except not as functional and its free. And you can’t even look at the abstracts without logging into the journal database. And of course, your university library probably subscribes to web of science, so you already have access to that for free.

By: Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox — Thu, 18 Nov 2004 20:16:00 +0000

Oh man, and I thought Jacob Levy’s announcement that you could do in-text searches of books at Amazon was the limit. But this! I may never leave my office again.