Thursday, November 18, 2004

I had a big long meeting this morning, but I managed to skim the New York Times first. And there were an interesting library related articles.

"Google Plans New Service for Scientists and Scholars"

Yes, everyone's favorite search engine has added a new service available at scholar.google.com. You will be able to utilize Google to search for scientific and scholarly articles. Google has collaborated with some scientific and scholarly publishers for this endevour. An interesting quote:
The project was also an effort, said Mr. Acharya, 39, to address a problem he confronted as an undergraduate in India. As a student he found materials in his college library, at times, to be significantly out of date.

Google Scholar will make the world's scientific literature universally accessible, he said.

"We don't know where the next breakthrough will come from," he said. "We want everyone to be able to stand on the shoulders of giants."

...

Google Scholar is another reflection of changing habits in the academic world, said Mr. Sack of HighWire Press. In the past decade, students and researchers have begun to go to online search engines first.
Uh, I don't think that Google Scholar is going to make the world's scientific literature universally accessible. Honestly, these scientific publishers make their money selling the information.

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