[Web4lib] Microsoft Academic Search vs. Google Scholar

[cpikas.14607360 at bloglines.com]

I have to go with Ross on this one, where I work (at the world-famous _Applied
Physics Lab_)-- Inspec (which is IEE, more science-y than engineering, and
completely separate from Compendex although frequently hosted on the same
platform) and Compendex run neck and neck.  I'm tickled pink they chose these
fields so that they can be compared against Scirus, GoogleScholar, and CiteSeer.


Everybody builds tools that work on Medline, so I think this is nice, and
of course, it supports their staff, too.

All this is IMHO (and not my employers)

Christina Pikas


--- Ross Singer" <ross.singer at library.gatech.edu wrote:

Of course, your mileage may vary on that.  Our most heavily used database
is
> Compendex (which includes searching in INSPEC).
> 
> I think it might
depend heavily on what the actual focus of your institution
> is.
> 
>
-Ross.
> 
> On 4/12/06, Karen Coyle <kcoyle at kcoyle.net> wrote:

> >
>
> I noticed in the CNET article that " The service currently covers only
> > physics, electrical engineering and computer science, Microsoft said in

> > a statement," -- When we had various databases mounted on the MELVYL

> > system at U of California, the LEAST used system was INSPEC, the primary

> > engineering database. It was also one of the largest. It appeared to
us
> > that the academic work done in engineering does not generate the same

> > amount of literature searching as that in other fields. So starting with

> > these topics, and perhaps giving users the impression that this is
>
> primarily a science/technology service, may not be a winning strategy.
> >
> > What was searched the most? Medline. After just a short number of
years,
> > Medline was getting as many searches as the online catalog (1/3
of the
> > total searches each, with the other 1/3 spread out over 7 topical

> > databases).
> >
> > kc