Companies always claim to be leading in this or pioneering in that. Google Scholar is less boastful, but still says it “provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature.” And so Marilyn Christianson, a librarian at Auburn University, put that assertion to the test.
“Test” might not be the right word, though. Think “crucible” – Christianson’s paper is over 5,000 words long, and contains tables, graphs, and all the percentages you could wish for; she really wanted to know if Google provided access to everything a researcher needs. On to the conclusion, then, in which “GS” stands for “Google Scholar.”
“Depending on one’s definition of a complete citation, GS indexed between fifty-seven and seventy-seven percent of the articles from the sample core list of journals,” Christianson writes. “If GS is held to the standard, of, say, the Cambridge Scientific Abstracts, about half the articles from the sample were found.”
At this point, things are looking bad for ol’ Google, but then they get better – or worse, depending on what you expected going into this examination. “This can be interpreted as an automation tour de force for a new database or as a shocking failure to include basic material,” Christianson continues.
Well, at least the folks running things in Mountain View didn’t claim Google Scholar was perfect. In truth, they’re actually much more humble in their description than is usual, and the team concludes, “We recognize the debt we owe to all those in academia whose work has made Google itself a reality and we hope to make Google Scholar as useful to this community as possible.”
Fair enough. As for those companies that (falsely) claim to be leaders and pioneers, it’s probably not worth the effort to address ‘em.
Hat tip to Peter Suber.
