Google Scholar/Books
SWING Spring Fling
May 21, 2010
Radford University
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
The Basics
 “Search across many disciplines and sources: articles, theses,
books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic
publishers, professional societies, online repositories,
universities and other web sites.”
 A free academic search engine, searching full text.
 Best comparisons to:
 EBSCO / InfoTrac / Web of Science / etc.
 NOT Google / Yahoo / etc.
 Debuted in November 2004
 Still Beta?
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
Conventional Wisdom
 You’d get: RECALL
 PRECISION: A question mark.
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
What you get
 Multiple links to article versions/abstracts.
 Exception: Citations
 Full text
 Text posted by author: Copy /institutional repository
 Alternative versions
 Copyright violation? Or here?
 If you want to pay $
 Links to library-subscribed full text
 Through your library’s article linking service / EBSCO / JSTOR
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
What you get, cont.
 Citation tracking
 Example: Double counts / Student papers / Question marks
 But it’s still a lot more than five
 Google algorithm for related articles
 E-mail alerts -- for a search or for new citations of an article
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
What you don’t get
 Metadata
 Years (2006 or 2004, Nonsense), authors (P. Login), publication
names (RUSQ): They can all be a mess.
 Which means you also get things like this
 Ability to sort results by anything other than Google
relevancy ranking
 weighs full text of document, publisher, author, frequency and
currency of citations
 A list of what’s included, or when it’s updated
 GS Nature vs. Nature.com
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
So how does it do?
 Pretty darn well.
 Howland et al. (C&RL, 2009): Google Scholar is on average
17% more scholarly than library subscription databases
 Walters (Portal, 2009): Google Scholar performs better than
most subscription databases in both recall and precision
 Numerous articles focused on use of Google Scholar in
particular disciplines have found it to be comparable to subjectspecific databases (though not the art study)
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
Legal****
 Google search brought to law: November 2009
 U.S. federal courts, and state district, appellate and supreme
courts
 Beware: No easy way to see if case has been overturned
 No Shepardizing treatment
 No statutes/regulations/codes (not static like opinions and
articles)
 Justia and FindLaw: other free services, but not as much full
text of opinions
***I am not a law librarian!
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
Patents****
 Included in Google Scholar search by default
 Patents can also be searched separately:
http://www.google.com/patents
 Searching full text back to 1790 (not possible on USPTO
site)
 OCR
 Does not include published applications
 LexisNexis, USPTO, do allow searches of these applications.
****I am not a patents librarian, nor a government documents librarian!
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
Are libraries linking to GS?
• Search box on home page
– With video for setup
– Switch to new discovery tools (e.g., Summon)
• Directions for using Google Scholar
• Listing on A-Z databases: Radford, Virginia Tech, many others
• On a public library website
• On a public library database list
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
Are libraries teaching GS?
• In the classroom: Personal use
– In upper level classes, particularly for citation searching
– Usually not freshmen -- full-text frustration
• At the reference desk: Personal use
– Invaluable part of my toolbox
• Full text available somewhere?
• Get a sense of what's out there?
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
Google Books
 No way to exclude Google Books results in Scholar
 Most common other type of result to appear in Google Scholar
searches
 And clicking on a Google Books result takes you out of Scholar
 From publisher partners
 From library partners
 Some allow for digitization of all books
 Others only allow digitization of public domain books
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
What you can see
 Google Book displays:
 Full text (books no longer in copyright)
 Downloadable PDFs / E-Pubs sometimes available
 Limited Preview (books for which you can view a certain
number of pages: as determined by publisher agreement: no
printing/copying)
 Snippet View (in-copyright books scanned by Library partners)
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
A Word About The Legalities
• Authors, Publishers filed suit
• Google and Authors/Publishers reached settlement agreement
• Many groups, including Dept. of Justice, objected to the
settlement
• Hearing on amended settlement held Feb. 18; no ruling has yet
been issued
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
A Few Uses
• Tough requests made easier: when was the term serial killer
coined?
• Student couldn't remember page she paraphrased in this book
• Primary sources for history classes
– How were slaves treated in Louisiana in 1850s?
– Child rearing in the antebellum period
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
Google Books alternatives
 HathiTrust
 Created by Google’s library partners
 Google Books, but with metadata!
 And some additional full text (GB vs. Hathi)
 Amazon
 Amazon I Spy vs. GB I Spy
 For public domain books: Internet Archive, Project
Gutenberg, others.
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
Where do we go from here?
• Future of Google Books is the big question
• Google and Libraries
• Librarian Central Blog and Newsletter discontinued summer
2008
• Google’s short-lived library conference attendance
• Will Google Scholar ever graduate?
• It was a 20% project at Google, remains that way.
• What else might be added?
• Books, Patents, Legal… what’s next?
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University
Thank you SWING
Luke Vilelle
Wyndham Robertson Library, Hollins University
lvilelle@hollins.edu
Luke Vilelle / Hollins University