Google Scholar and the UML
UML Reference Forum – April
2006
Outline
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History
What Is Google Scholar?
Google Scholar and Searching
Pros & Cons
Satisficing
Quoting Lorcan Dempsey
Other Libraries and Google Scholar
Discussion
History
• October 2004: Google launches Google Scholar
• February 6, 2005: Google Scholar approaches UML with
invitation to take part in pilot project:
Hi Norma,
I am a developer with Google Scholar. We provide
search over scholarly content - journal articles,
technical reports, books, etc. Your son Paul gave me
your address.
• Collections committee investigating Google Scholar for
metasearch. Google Scholar invitation dovetailed nicely.
• Task Force on UML & Google Scholar: Allison Erhardt;
Lisa O’Hara; Elizabeth Serhal; Jared Whiklo
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History
• October 2005 - Task Force presented report to Collections
• Recommendations and observations:
• Google Scholar provides metasearch functionality
• Bison and UMLinks should have the same content
• Provide electronic holdings list to Google Scholar
• Google Scholar link added to all UML Web pages
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What is Google Scholar?
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What is Google Scholar?
“Google Scholar provides a simple way to broadly search for
scholarly literature. From one place, you can search across
many disciplines and sources: peer-reviewed papers, theses,
books, abstracts and articles, from academic publishers,
professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and
other scholarly organizations. Google Scholar helps you
identify the most relevant research across the world of
scholarly research.”
“Google Scholar aims to sort articles the way researchers do,
weighing the full text of each article, the author, the
publication in which the article appears, and how often the
piece has been cited in other scholarly literature. The most
relevant results will always appear on the first page.”
http://scholar.google.com/scholar/about.html
Quotes from Google Scholar’s Principal Engineer
Dr. Anurag Acharya
– Index has grown significantly since November
2004, but actual index size cannot be disclosed
– “We cannot share update information, but our
long-term goal is to update every day.”
– Dec., 2005 “over 500 libraries are participating in
the program from all over the world; more are
joining every week.”
– “click through rate for libraries participating in the
Library Links program is a factor of 3-6 higher
than the click through rate for libraries that are
included without holdings information.”
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Google Scholar and Searching
• Subject coverage:
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Medicine 22%
Engineering 14%
Biology 13%
Sociology & Psych 13%
Chem & Physics 12%
Humanities, Business,
Law 26%?
Dr. A. Acharya. "Searching
scholarly literature: a Google
scholar perspective,“ a paper
presented at the 9th World
Congress on Health
Information and Libraries,
Brazil, September 2005.
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Human.,
Bus., Law
Medicine
Engin.
Biol.
Chem &
Physics
0%
10%
Soc &
Psych
20%
30%
Recent Improvements
• March 2, 2006 - British Library announces Google
Scholar users will see links to the British Library
document service
• Early 2006 - Library Links program
• Mid 2005 - Advanced search features added
• Mid 2005 – Preferences
• Language
• Discipline
• Separate results window
• Yesterday? All articles | Recent articles
Pros ...
• Patrons on campus search for & read articles on
screen, just like our databases. No UML “brand.”
Conclusion? Google Scholar provides free access
• UML should work with Google Scholar so patrons
realize our important role
• Federated searching
• Citation tracking tool
• Single interface to library catalogues, databases, Web
• Interdisciplinary, full text galore
• Fast, easy to use and navigate
• Easy authentication and access 24/7
• Google Scholar has high visibility
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Google Scholar Student Newspaper Ad
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/5153/551/1600/scholar1.gif
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Citation Analysis
• Thompson/ISI only source of large-scale “inverted”
bibliographic data required for impact analysis. Google
Scholar provides same ability.
• Analyzed 203 publications, cited by 4000+ other
publications
• “Surprisingly good agreement” between counts provided
by the two services.
• “Additional robustness offered by multiple sources of
such data promises to increase the utility of these
measurements as open citation protocols and open
access increase their impact on electronic scientific
publication practices.”
Belew, R. K. “Scientific impact quantity and quality: Analysis of two sources of
bibliographic data.” arXiv.org preprint arXiv:cs.IR/0504046, 11 Apr 05.
www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~rik/papers/belew05-iqq.pdf
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... and Cons
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Older articles presented first by default
Coverage unclear, not always scholarly
Size of index unknown
Update frequency unknown
CanCon weak
One year behind in indexing PUBMED
No advanced search features: publication type; date
range; descriptors
• Citation management: no sorting, exporting or emailing
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Citation Management
Google Scholar is not Z39.50 compatible, however we
are working with them on Direct Export. I cannot give
an exact date for the Export but hope it will be soon. In
the meantime you will have to manually add references
that you find from Google Scholar into RefWorks.
RefWorks Email, March 8, 2005
Satisfice, -fise, v.
[Alteration of SATISFY (influenced by L. satisfac re).]
intr. To decide on and pursue a course of action that will
satisfy the minimum requirements necessary to achieve
a particular goal. Hence satisficer; satisficing ppl. a.
and vbl. n.
Oxford English Dictionary Online
© Oxford University Press 2006
SECOND EDITION 1989
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Satisficing
• Reasonable behaviour
• Different people have different requirements
• Our role: enable patrons to meet their necessary
requirements, using a variety of appropriate tools
• Google Scholar can satisfice but may not be
sufficient for scholarly comprehensiveness
• Do all of our patrons need to exhaust all avenues of
scholarship all of the time?
Quoting Lorcan Dempsey
• Libraries have to find ways to introduce themselves into
the user environment rather than expecting them to
come to the library
• “If you create a one-stop-shop, users will treat you as a
one-shop-stop. If they don’t find what they want on their
first attempt, they’ll move on to the next shop and out of
the library.”
• Google is the first and last resort for many people. We
have to make library resources surface in these types
of resources.
“The Library and the Network.” Presentation at Access 2005,
Edmonton.
More Lorcan …
What do library users want? How do we embed ourselves
in these activities? How are we doing? How’s Google
Scholar doing?
Activity
UML
Google Scholar
Discovering
Linking
Gathering
Annotating
Depositing
Creating
Asking
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Google Scholar & Other Libraries
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MIT: libraries.mit.edu/help/google-scholar
U of T: main.library.utoronto.ca
Harvard: e-research.lib.harvard.edu/V/FMBN49PTETH NVF81SXKFK5YPFJP
JR5LJ3JGEUBIEE1IXAJUYFB-40624?func=find-db-1&pds_handle=GUEST
U of Georgia: www.libs.uga.edu/
California Digital Library:
The CDL put together this fine report (pdf) based on a survey of University of
California Libraries. On June 22, 2005, the CDL requested information from the
campuses about librarian and library staff use of Google Scholar in their own
work and at public service desks. Eight of ten campuses responded with a
wealth of information about the creative ways in which the libraries use Google
Scholar, as well as with their objections to its use. Immediately below is an
overall summary of responses, followed by a document containing all the
detailed responses received. At the end of the second section is a report from
UCLA detailing how the UCLA library integrates and positions Google Scholar
along with the rest of their electronic resources.
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