[WEB4LIB] Re: Google Scholar

[Karen Harker]

I, too, was taken aback at this and this section:

If you have our holdings, why do we need a link resolver?

Google Scholar knows which journals you have, but we don't know who serves them to you or how to direct users to them. Your link resolver takes the journal information and returns the correct URL to allow your users to access the article. 

-------------------
I think that the purpose of Google having the library's journal holdings is to enable the ability to display links to full-text dynamically, depending on our holdings.  That's a nicety which was available to us through PubMed's LinkOut service. But it's a nicety that requires more work on the Library's end.  So we implemented our link resolver as an "Outside Tool".  This resulted in our full-text icon/link appearing with every citation. At first, we got numerous complaints from clients about "broken links" and "why can't I get full-text".  After some tweaking of our icon and greater public awareness, the complaints have quieted and actually our clients have access to more full-text than using LinkOut.

So, it was a balance of Library resources and client usability.  Usability took one step back, but then two steps forward.



Karen R. Harker, MLS
UT Southwestern Medical Library
5323 Harry Hines Blvd.
Dallas, TX  75390-9049
214-648-8946
http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/library/

>>> Thomas Dowling <tdowling at ohiolink.edu> 5/11/2005 10:57:01 AM >>>
Suzanne M. Gray wrote:
> It looks like libraries not involved in the original trial group can now 
> add institutional access via your link resolver to Google Scholar:
> 
> http://scholar.google.com/scholar/libraries.html 
> 

You mean this part?

  ...Next, make your resolver export your electronic holdings in this
  format. Finally, email us the URLs for these files. We'll review
  your configuration and get back to you as soon as we can...it may
  take several weeks for us to review.

[Or, tacitly, pay your resolver vendor to do this for you.]


Just IMO of course, but not exporting static sets of journal holdings is
one of the big reasons we have resolvers in the first place.


-- 
Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu