UBC Google Scholar Blog
April 8th, 2005The University of British Columba Library has started a blog detailing “current information about Google Scholar for Canadian Librarians.” (link via del.icio.us)
I had an interesting discussion with two librarian colleagues this afternoon. We talked about Google and their various initiatives that will affect libraries. We talked about Open Worldcat and Google Scholar.
I think that the Open Worldcat program puts a huge amount of data into bigger database which just makes the engines less useful than they are now (I include Yahoo in this as well). The bigger the databases, the less likely that users will find what they want (consider that most queries are only 2 or 3 words long, 4% of the population uses advanced search queries, and less than that go beyond the second page of the results). IMO, Open Worldcat is an “if you can’t beat them, join them” approach that the library community should not be taking. We’ll get lost in the search engines databases and never be heard form again, like other useful data.
I haven’t fully put together my opinions on Google Scholar yet. To tell you the truth, I’ve mostly ignored the discussions on it, because when I first tried GS, I laughed out loud. It needs a lot work before I would ever seriously use it for research. Alot of work.