Google introduced yet another beta service today, Google Scholar. It indexes a variety of scholarly literature, some available in abstracts only, some with links to password-protected collections of e-journals. From Chuck Richard and David Curle.
- Adding content without context: This is a classic example of why Google needs to learn more about the contexts its users live in order to deliver targeted and relevant info. As we mentioned in an earlier post, Google keeps adding services in a fairly haphazard fashion. It's an entry point among many, another beta item with its own URL, just like Google Print, the Google Services sub-menu, the Google Labs sub-menu within that, etc. But despite the new plethora of Google hybrids, at least this one (1) carves out a vertical that is a group whose users can identify Scholar as a focused tool for them, and (2) cleans up the difficulties in access of some of the previous messes. For example, Google Print content appears without having to invoke special search syntax.
- A marketer’s nightmare for Elsevier’s Scopus: An interesting side story here is the contrast between the visibility this offering gets just because it’s from Google, and Elsevier’s struggle to get its brand-new Scopus collection of scientific literature abstracts noticed. The bottom line is that Google Scholar will be in part an everyman's Scopus or Thomson's Web of Science. Scopus is targeted at institutions and academic libraries, not individuals, but it will gain the attention of library users, students, and faculty. Elsevier made a strong pitch that Scopus, with its ease of use and Google-like simplicity, would draw these users away from Google back to library resources. Well, here comes Google with Google-like simplicity. In the tug-of-war, the handkerchief just got pulled back over the line by the users.
- Citation analysis: The Google results include ranking based on the importance of articles as shown by how often they are cited. Search results also point to other articles that cite each retrieved article. This feature is headed in the right direction and a smart move, but for the serious user, comprehensive counting of cites is very important. Scopus and Web of Science have strong brands with a history of documented precision that inspires belief in their citation counts. Google Scholar apparently only relies on those citations found within the content indexed by Google, and the full algorithm for ranking is a secret. Again, the casual user just wants to find the article, so it's not a problem for them!
- Devil in the details. What content is covered here? As usual there’s a maddening lack of specificity about exactly what’s covered by this: sources and formats covered, what’s in abstracts format vs. full text, what date ranges are covered, etc. But again, casual users don’t worry about such niceties, as long as they find something relevant to their topic.
- Where was the scholarly/library community? As Gary Price points out, Google Scholar doesn’t contain anything that isn’t already available for free over the Web from thousands of public and academic libraries all around the world. The library community has been content to take potshots at Google, but hasn’t been able to make its own message of quality and comprehensiveness heard above the Google and Yahoo! noise. Whatever this service's shortcomings, its introduction and the lack of any equally compelling offering from the academic and publishing establishments simply show how slowly those establishments have reacted to Google's march forward.
