Guess who's hiring?

Strategic Partner Manager, Google Scholar - Mountain View Jobs in Mountain View, CA

Google's rapidly growing content partnerships organization is looking for a Strategic Partner Manager who will be responsible for maintaining and growing strategic relationships with our Google Scholar partners. These partners include the top scholarly publishers, aggregators and repositories in the US and abroad.

Let's just hope they hire someone that knows a thing or two about the humanities and social sciences...

The Infinite Library

From the University of Toronto Magazine:

Within just a few months, Google Scholar has established itself as a rival to powerful multinational companies such as Thomson and Elsevier that offer huge (and, for libraries, hugely expensive) databases of scholarly material. Some librarians say that Google underperforms its rivals in the currency and quantity of its search results, while others declare that its simplicity is a huge advantage.

Who knew?

Libraries search for better search engines

A lot of things are not relevant, current or unbiased when you just search online,' said Martin Kesselman, a Life Science librarian at Chang Science Library on Cook campus. 'In doing a regular Google search you're not going to find scholarly journals.' In response to this growing concern, University librarians have come up with a compromise - Google Scholar.

Emphasis mine.

Gaga over Google? Scholar in the Social Sciences

Susan writes in to note that she's co-published an article in Library Hi Tech that discusses some findings re: Scholar v. Fee-based databases in the Social Sciences. Abstract available here.

Scholar Ads

This ad appeared in at least one university newspaper. Was it in yours?

UPDATE: Gary weighs in with some thoughtful commentary.

Google Scholar adds scholarly dimension to Internet searches

From the Wilkes University student paper

Google--an Internet destination so huge it has become a common verb in the English language (as in 'Google it'). It can also be a librarian's worst nightmare.The Internet search engine has made even obscure knowledge easily accessible from the comfort of one's own home, making it virtually unnecessary for students to venture out to the library.

Making Google Scholar Work for You: MIT Libraries

MIT is doing a great job in presenting all of the issues that go along with Scholar from a students perspective.

College life, powered by Google

Noted without comment.

Search by Scope

Brad writes in with news that under the Advanced Search page you can now limit to particular subject areas. The categories highlight one of Scholar's lingering problems - being heavily dominated by the Natural Sciences. For example, "Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities" are all lumped under one category.

UC Library Staff Use of Google Scholar

The CDL put together this fine report (pdf) based on a survey of University of California Libraries.

On June 22, 2005, the CDL requested information from the campuses about librarian and library staff use of Google Scholar in their own work and at public service desks. Eight of ten campuses responded with a wealth of information about the creative ways in which the libraries use Google Scholar, as well as with their objections to its use. Immediately below is an overall summary of responses, followed by a document containing all the detailed responses received. At the end of the second section is a report from UCLA detailing how the UCLA library integrates and positions Google Scholar along with the rest of their electronic resources.

Scholarly Web Searching: Google Scholar and Scirus

Greg Notess puts them head to head...

Despite all the limitations and problems, both offer some unique reasons to use them beyond just watching their future development. For a quick, broad, multidisciplinary search on a very narrow, specific topic, either Scholar or Scirus can give a good start. For citation verification, both can help find erroneous as well as correct citation information. The Cited By links at Google Scholar can be a useful adjunct to the more comprehensive citation tracking from citation indexes via ISI's Web of Science (or can function as a partial replacement for those without access).

Librarians Point to Google Scholar

From The Chronicle:

Google's search tool that focuses on academic material, called Google Scholar, is winning a prominent place in the hearts, minds, and Web sites of some librarians.

Making Scholar more prominent?

Peter has noticed some interesting results in regular Google searches.

Good bye Britney Spears, hello academic journals

One of the best stories about Scholar from a college paper I've seen yet.

Google Scholar is a different and more accurate way to find academically appropriate and peer-reviewed journal articles without getting all the rock star bios, sports results and blogs.