[WEB4LIB] Google Scholar

[Paul R. Pival]

I'm not well-versed on DOI, but I do know what EZProxy can do for us, 
and I jotted down some ideas about how EZProxy and Schoogle can work 
together at
How to make Google Scholar work for the distance students -  
http://distlib.blogs.com/distlib/2004/11/how_to_make_goo.html

In a nutshell, if you introduce Schoogle to EZProxy (and surely this 
should work for other authentication systems), Schoogle can show your 
off campus students the same content that your on-campus students get.  
The next step, also addressed in that link above, is how to get this 
info in the face of the student/scholar who just visits the Schoogle 
homepage.  :-)

Paul R. Pival
Distance Education Librarian
213E MLT
University of Calgary
Calgary, Alberta T2N 1N4 	
*Phone:
Toll Free:
Fax:
email:
Website: *
	(403) 220-2119
1 (866) 210-9637
(403) 282-6837
ppival at ucalgary.ca <mailto:ppival at ucalgary.ca>
Library Connection <http://www.ucalgary.ca/library/libcon>

   



Scott Drone-Silvers wrote:

>Steve, et al;
>
>I don't want to make light of anyone's concerns at all. We do need to take
>Google Scholar seriously. I still think that we need to have a delegation
>approach Google to talk about our concerns, and to propose an alliance that
>makes this a more useful product. But I think that we all need to take a
>deep breath and think hard about this - especially those of us who report to
>deans/provosts/VPs who are getting reports of this from the Chronicle, the
>NYT, and elsewhere.
>
>My AVP called me about this last Friday, after she had read the Chronicle
>online article. She is a very technology-oriented person, and she has some
>interesting ideas about how technology will change things in the library.
>She told me that she had tried GS out, and that she wasn't overly impressed
>with the "scholarly" nature of some of the resources - and she also noted
>the fact that she couldn't get much of the content (we don't have JSTOR).
>She found it frustrating that she could see the indexing / abstracting, but
>was going to have to fork over money to buy an article without being able to
>read it fully to determine if it is really useful to her. My response to her
>is that I don't see many people willing to do that. This isn't iTunes, where
>if someone downloads something that turn out not to need, it only costs them
>$.99. 
>
>Therein lies the crux of GS's limitations to my mind (not all of them, but
>one of the most significant). Unless the publishing market changes far more
>drastically and far faster than I can imagine it, I can't see that many
>publishers giving away free access to their full text anytime soon (oh, some
>will, and initiatives like Creative Commons and PubMed will add to this).
>They may want independent scholars (or anyone else) to buy articles on a
>per-article basis to make some more money. But IMHO, they aren't going to
>gamble on regular Joe/Jane Student forking over their dough in that model
>and abandon licensing content to libraries. YMMV, of course.
>
>Maybe this is where we need to step in to work with Google. If we can set up
>a way to configure GS so that it creates a link to our libraries where  our
>students can obtain full text of articles retrieved through GS, then it
>seems to me that we are helping ourselves and our students while
>simultaneously hitching ourselves to Google's marketing star for the
>service. 
>
>For a practical example of the "this isn't  iTunes" argument,  I keyed a
>search on "interlibrary loan" into GS. Among the results retrieved was a
>2000 article from New Library World that was available FT from Ingenta - for
>$25. A search for the title in my online periodical holding found the issue
>available from one of my subscription databases - which would cost the
>student the $15 in library fees that we collect each semester, but would let
>them get as many FT articles for that $15 as they want - plus reference
>databases, et cetera. Now, if I didn't have the journal/article in question,
>then we can still offer the ILL option. If they don't want to wait, then
>they can buy it on their own. Some will do so - but I don't think it will
>ever be enough to make publishers stop licensing content to libraries
>
>The question is, what technologies will be required of individual libraries
>to make such an arrangement work? Will we all need to get an Open URL
>resolver? If so, there's another $10 large a year - but it would probably be
>worth it.. Someone with more technical knowledge will need to step up there
>and explain how that might work.
>
>Just my $.04. Anyone else have any bright ideas?
>
>
>Scott Drone-Silvers
>Director of Library Services
>Lake Land College
>5001 Lake Land Blvd.
>Mattoon, IL 61938
>(217) 234-5338 / FAX (217) 234-5533
>Web Page: http://www.lakelandcollege.edu/library/
>
>
>
>
>  
>



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