[Two postings: (1) B. Mahon, (2) B. Kirsop]
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(1)
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 08:09:19 -0000
From: "Barry Mahon" <barry.mahon_at_iol.ie>
David Spurrett wrote:
> I would find an OA-only filtered Google Scholar unhelpful...
> When I search the literature I *first* want to know about what
> there is, and *after* that I worry about what I can get hold of.
> In any event, trying to get Google to provide 'censored' results
> is a side-show issue. If all the research was available by OA,
> everything in the search results would be freely available.
> Also, since accessibility improves citations, stuff that is OA should
> look better on the Google results censored or not. (They start with
> the most cited at the top.)
This seems a little confused (IMO); the *first* aspect, I think, would
be recognised by everyone. Since, manifestly, all research (output)
is not presently OA then 'censored' (to use David's word, it would not
be my choice) Google Scholar output would not provided information on
all the material available.
Small point - "accessibility" should perhaps be modified to 'accessibility
in sources covered by ISI's citation database.....'
Barry Mahon
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(2)
From: Barbara Kirsop <EPT_at_biostrat.demon.co.uk>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 2004 14:48:17 -0000
Stevan, this from HIFnet. Can you comment? Barbara
From: <pat.letendre_at_ualberta.ca>
To: <hif-net_at_who.int>
Sent: Wednesday, November 24, 2004 12:07 PM
Subject: [HIF-net at WHO] Google Scholar [3]
> ...Universities spend
> vast sums of money providing students with access to multiple databases
> with peer-reviewed information and also offer instruction on database
> searching. If students now flock to Google Scholar, this money will be
> increasingly wasted while students access papers that may not be
> peer-reviewed and miss out on much worthwhile information. See "Google
> Scholarly": http://web.freepint.com/forum/bar/read.php?i=30646
[Comment: Students will be Students, in the web-age, and databases
will compete for usefulness and usage. Use software to detect
web-based cut-paste jobs and mark/reward source use according
to its quality. (Profs should be profs too, in the web age.)
Make local non-google resources visible and user-friendly,
invite profs to use and assign them in coursework, and let the
usership vote with their use. If google wins, database providers
will either imitate and compete or fall out. S.H.]
> It will be interesting to see where Google's new product fits with PubMed.
> Can anyone comment on Google Scholar's implications, if any, for users in
> developing countries?
[Comment: PubMed as well as the priced databases will no doubt
soon have a google-trawler in the background, automatically
locating full-texts in google-space for the "hits" that come
out of the PubMed or priced database searches. Useful for all --
developing and developed. The poor man's database (google) will
either drive innovation and optimization in the priced databases,
or drive them out of business. Don't forget that a 100% OA
corpus will be a gift to google, unless the priced services think
fast. But don't count out the free OA and OAI service-providers
like
http://citebase.eprints.org/ http://citeseer.ist.psu.edu/cs
and
http://oaister.umdl.umich.edu/o/oaister/ either: They are
research-based, highly innovative, ahead of the game, and their day
is still to come (with 100% OA). -- S.H.
Received on Wed Nov 24 2004 - 20:12:24 GMT