What is Google Scholar? Google Scholar Data Pros and Cons Who Should Use it at the Museum Readings on Google Scholar Examples for Google Scholar Google Book Search Links Other Google Tools

 

What is Google Scholar?

• from Google Scholar
• from Wikipedia
• Google Scholar is a free service which searches for scholarly literature including peer-reviewed articles, abstracts, technical reports, theses, books.
• It delivers citations to articles, books, links to full text, link to abstracts. Some full text will be free, some pay-for, some will be things we already subscribe to like JSTOR and Ingenta.

 

Google Scholar Data

What's included:

• There is no list of sources. According to Google it includes academic publishers, professional societies, preprint repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations.
• From Greg Notess in Aug. 2005: “Some prominent collections include ACM, Annual Reviews, arXiv, Blackwell, IEEE, Ingenta, Institute of Physics, NASA Astrophysics Data System, Pub Med, Nature Publishing Group, RePEc (Research Papers in Economics), Springer, and Wiley Interscience, although not all in their entirety. Many Web sites from universities and nonprofit organizations are included but only documents that seem like scholarly journal articles.”
• We know that JSTOR is included in GS search now. You get an idea as you see results. Project Muse is included.

What's not included:

• Elsevier’s online journals in Science Direct is one important science source not covered in GS. Elsevier launched its own search engine, Scirus in 2001 for scholarly journals in science. Many other science sources such as Pub Med are covered in both Google and Scirus.

Pros and Cons

__Advantages/Strengths__:

• Metasearch for free. Multidisciplinary. You sometimes get full text, but citations and abstracts (especially of items that we do not have in subscription) are also useful.
• Relevance ranking (What Google is famous for). Also shows the “cited by” counts.
• Available from any internet connection
• Google name / Google Interfaces
• When on-site, knows electronic availability (if Library Links is activated)
• Good place for scholarly info on an unfamiliar topic.

__Disadvantages/Weaknesses__:

• The major questions about Google Scholar relate to the scope, coverage, and accuracy of the content.
• Not clear what sources GS is including (lack of transparency).
• Studies show GS misses some articles the native interface would find (GS searching JSTOR vs JSTOR searching JSTOR) – (Example: Search for Raphael and “colonna altarpiece” yields 10 Jstor results in GS and 29 in JSTOR (Nov. 28, ’06))
• Data not always scholarly
• Some problems with search (faulty date logic and faulty OR logic)
• No way of sorting by publication date

 

Who Should Use it at the Museum

 

• Everyone should be aware of it.
• Art History researchers will have more control over their searches and displays in specific databases (like Jstor or BHA). However, a Google Scholar search may find relevant material outside our current indexes or holdings.
• Scientists and Conservationists looking at scientific topics will find Google Scholar very useful.
• Departments such as Editorial and Education (or any individual) wanting to find scholarly information about any topic can certainly take advantage of Google Scholar.

 

Readings on Google Scholar

• a list of readings about Google Scholar suggested by Jill Cirasella, Brooklyn College Library, at a Metro SIG meeting, October 18, 2006)
• Power Point presentation from same meeting
• Bell, Stephen J., and Michael J. Krasulski. What's Google Up to Now?
• Notess, Greg R. Scholarly Web Searching: Google Scholar and Scirus
• Tennant, Roy. Is Metasearching Dead?

 

Examples for Google Scholar

Google Book Search

 

Links

Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com

Google Book Search: http://books.google.com

Google Library Links Program: http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/libraries.html

 

Other Google Tools

 

You need to create a Google Account in order to use many of these tools.

 

Google Accounts Login Page: https://www.google.com/accounts/Login

 

1) Google Search History: http://www.google.com/searchhistory (Also called Google Personalized Search)

 

• Creating a Google Account activates the Personalized Search feature.
• Finds the search results most relevant to you based on your search history.
• Using Personalized Search, you can:

 

1. Get the results most relevant to you, based on what you've searched for in the past.
2. View and manage your past searches, including the webpages, images and news headlines results you've clicked on.
3. Create bookmarks you can access from any computer (Google’s Social Bookmarking tool). N.B. Google uses the word Labels to mean Tags.

N.B.: Early on, you may not notice a huge impact on your search results, but as you build up your search history, your personalized search results will continue to improve.

 

2) Google Alerts: http://www.google.com/alerts

 

 

• Not an RSS-Feed.
• You get email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your keyword search terms.
• You can manage and edit all your alerts.
• Can use the Google Advanced Search to finesse your results. If you are happy with the results, copy and paste the query from the Advanced Search text box to your Google Alerts.
• You can create up to 1000 alerts.

 

3) Google Reader: http://www.google.com/reader/view/

 

• A Feed Reader
• “Google Reader shows you all your favorite sites in one convenient place. It's like your inbox, for the web.”
• Free and works in most modern browsers, without any software to install.
• It also works on any mobile phone browser.
• You can subcribe to feeds by typing in a Feed URL, or you can search for feeds on your topic by typing in keywords.
• You can add tags to the links from your various feeds as a way of organizing your content. (You can also make your tags public to share them with others).
• Google Reader has a built-in public page where you can post interesting items from Google Reader to share with others. (Distribute the URL of public page).
• My Public Page: http://www.google.com/reader/shared/12353247312469024800

 

 

4) Google Notebook: http://www.google.com/notebook

 

• Allows you to clip and collect information as you browse the Web.
• You can add clippings of text, images and links from Web pages to your Google Notebook without ever leaving your browser window.
• You can access your Google Notebooks from any computer by using your Google Accounts login.
• Since Google Notebook lives in your browser, you won't be left with a scattered collection of notes, Word docs, and browser bookmarks to sort through; all your web findings will be gathering into one organized, easy accessible location that you can access from any computer.
• You can share your Google Notebook with the world by making it public. You can also invite collaborators.

 

5) Google Suggest: http://labs.google.com/suggest

 

• As you type, Google will offer keyword suggestions in real time. Useful when one is unsure of exact spelling.
• Use the arrow keys to navigate up and down the suggested words or phrases in the drop-down.
• The suggestions shown while typing in the text box are the number of user queries in Google using that phrase, not the number of results generated by that search in Google. I.E. the results show what people searched for -- NOT how many results Google offers for the word.

 

6) Personalized Google Homepage: http://www.google.com/ig

 

• Customize your Google Homepage by adding all sorts of widgets. (There are categories of widgets to search.)
• You can also add your Google Notebook, and other Google Tools to your Homepage for easy access.

 

ADDITIONAL TOOLS:

 

Google Image Labeller: http://images.google.com/imagelabeler/

 

• Allows you to label random images to help improve the relavance of Google’s image search results.

 

Google Sets: http://labs.google.com/sets

 

• Automatically creates sets of items from a few examples. It suggests topics similar to the one you enter on the first line.

 

Google Labs: http://labs.google.com

 

• Showcases Google ideas that aren't quite ready for prime time. You can play with these prototypes and send Google your feedback.

 

 

Google Co-op: http://www.google.com/coop (Custom Search Engine)

 

• Allows you to create a specialized Custom Search Engine that reflects your knowledge and interests.

 

• What you can do with a Custom Search Engine:

1. Place a search box and search results on your website.
2. Specify or prioritize the sites you want to include in searches.
3. Customize the look and feel to match your website.
4. Invite your community to contribute to the search engine.

• My Search Engines:
• Orlando Gibbons Search Engine
• Caravaggio Search Engine

 

Google U.S. Government Search: http://www.google.com/ig/usgov

 

Google for Educators: http://www.google.com/educators

 

Google Librarian Center: http://www.google.com/librariancenter