I have no objective evidence, but I suspect there are some factors
leading to an impression of "non discovery" -
although many researchers use Google, they also use their library
catalogues, and also search in specific publisher/agent websites
(e.g. EBSCO, ScienceDirect, CABAbstracts, etc.) - and of course they
will not find IR things there (unless they are articles published in
the particular publisher/agent website being searched). There may
also be the additional frustration of finding articles in the
publisher/agency websites where the user does not have access to full
text.
a recommendation here would be for libraries to ensure that they have
links with OAIster, etc., so that when people search their catalogues
they can also ("inadvertently") search other IRs.
also - a question: am I correct to think that some (many?) materials
in IRs are not full text, but abstract only? (I know this is the case
with some IRs that concentrate on dissertations, etc.)
pippa
On 20/07/07, Stevan Harnad <harnad_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk> wrote:
On Fri, 20 Jul 2007, Steve Hitchcock wrote:
> Google makes the known needles easy to find in IRs.
Here's the harder
> part. How do I find what I don't know about? In other
words, it's
> there in an IR, just like there's lots of stuff in
repositories, but
> how do I find it if I know nothing about it? Is it just
random
> chance, or is there a more systematic way?
Alternatively, how do IRs
> advertise their contents to people?
There are two kinds of search. One (the trivial one) is
where I have the
reference in hand, and I am simply seeking the full-text
online. I don't think
anyone disputes that such items are "discovered" and
retrieved by google
uncannily well (if they are indeed out there in google
space).
The other kind of search is the one based on topic words
and keywords. That's the
kind of search that those who claim there is a
"discoverability" problem with OA
IRs have in mind. And that is where they have to provide
objective evidence that
it is truly the case, rather than simply a consequence of
the fact that IRs are
near empty, hence the target contents are non-existent,
rather than
non-discoverable.
The only way to test this is to establish that a
sufficiently large sample
of identical target items is present in both OA IR space
and a benchmark
database that *does* have the "discoverability"
capability they envision
-- and then to demonstrate the size of the putative
discoverability problem
in the OA IR case.
Stevan Harnad
> Steve Hitchcock
> IAM Group, School of Electronics and Computer Science
> University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK
> Email: sh94r_at_ecs.soton.ac.uk
> Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 7698 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 2865
>
> At 12:11 20/07/2007, Leslie Carr wrote:
> >On 20 Jul 2007, at 09:03, Mahendra Mahey wrote:
> >
> >>JIBS and JISC Collections Workshop -
> >>Discovering eprints: finding needles in the haystack?
> >
> >Andy Powell did 30 minutes work on this last year and
showed that the
> >needles were actually quite easy to find with Google.
(see http://
> >
efoundations.typepad.com/efoundations/2006/10/pushing_an_open.html
)
> >
> >I have just repeated his exercise with some eprints
selected from
> >repositories at Southampton, Loughborough, Strathclyde
and
> >Westminster and found that the situation is unchanged.
ie, it is very
> >easy to find a specific needle using the needle's
title or using
> >keywords drawn from its title.
> >
> >I suspect that the real difficulty in finding needles
comes from the
> >fact that most of them haven't been put in the
haystack in the first
> >place.
> >
> >Can anyone point me at some data showing the
difficulty that people
> >are having in finding eprints? I would genuinely like
to know - I am
> >NOT a Google apologist (I believe that there are
probably serious
> >theoretical flaws with using it for certain types of
information
> >discovery), but I dislike perpetuating urban myths and
I would like
> >to find some serious data.
> >---
> >Les
>
--
Pippa Smart
Research Communication and Publishing Consultant
3 Park Lane, Appleton, Oxon OX13 5JT,UK
Tel: +44 1865 864255
Mob: +44 7775 627688
Skype: pippasmart
pippa.smart_at_googlemail.com
Received on Fri Jul 20 2007 - 16:06:22 BST