SWING Spring Fling May 21, 2010 Radford University Google Scholar/Books Luke Vilelle / Hollins University.

SWING Spring FlingMay 21, 2010

Radford University

Google Scholar/Books

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 2004Still Beta?

Conventional Wisdom


You’d get: RECALL PRECISION: A question mark.

What you get


Multiple links to article versions/abstracts.Exception: Citations

Full textText posted by author: Copy /

institutional repositoryAlternative 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

What you get, cont.


Citation tracking Example: Double counts / Student papers /

Question marksBut it’s still a lot more than five

Google algorithm for related articlesE-mail alerts -- for a search or for new

citations of an article

What you don’t get


MetadataYears (2006 or 2004, Nonsense), authors (

P. Login), publication names (RUSQ): They can all be a mess.

Which means you also get things like thisAbility to sort results by anything other than

Google relevancy rankingweighs full text of document, publisher, author,

frequency and currency of citationsA list of what’s included, or when it’s updated

GS Nature vs. Nature.com

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 subject-specific databases (though not the art study)

Legal****


Google search brought to law: November 2009U.S. federal courts, and state district,

appellate and supreme courtsBeware: No easy way to see if case has

been overturnedNo 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!

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 applicationsLexisNexis, USPTO, do allow searches of

these applications.****I am not a patents librarian, nor a government documents librarian!

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


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?


Google Books


No way to exclude Google Books results in ScholarMost common other type of result to appear

in Google Scholar searchesAnd clicking on a Google Books result takes you out

of ScholarFrom publisher partnersFrom library partners

Some allow for digitization of all booksOthers only allow digitization of public domain books

What you can see


Google Book displays: Full text (books no longer in copyright)

Downloadable PDFs / E-Pubs sometimes availableLimited 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)

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


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


Google Books alternatives


HathiTrustCreated by Google’s library partnersGoogle Books, but with metadata!And some additional full text (GB vs. Hathi)

AmazonAmazon I Spy vs. GB I Spy

For public domain books: Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, others.

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 VilelleWyndham Robertson Library, Hollins

[email protected]

Thank you SWING


SWING Spring Fling May 21, 2010 Radford University Google Scholar/Books Luke Vilelle / Hollins University.

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