Google Unveils a Search Engine Focused on Scholarly Materials

There has been lots of discusion about Google Scholar on the various library listservs for the past two days, however the article in today's Chronicle of Higher Education brings it right into researcher's offices.

In a move that some scholars see as a boon for research and others say could help make libraries obsolete, Google on Thursday unveiled a search engine that focuses on academic materials. The new tool, called Google Scholar, is a version of the company's popular search service. The new search engine limits its results to "scholarly literature such as peer-reviewed papers, theses, books, preprints, abstracts, and technical reports," according to a company statement. Google officials say they have the cooperation of a broad range of academic publishers, library groups, scholarly societies, and colleges, though the officials would not name the participants.

Further legitimizing this, BioMedCentral has already developed a Google Scholar search extension for FireFox and The Distant Librarian blog has posted bookmarklets for IE and FireFox. Despite Google Scholar also serving as the front end for searching OCLC's Open WorldCat, a search engine designed to help direct people to library resources, libraries, overall, have good cause to be nervous.

Posted by Tom on November 19, 2004