Google Scholar: Transforming Research Access

Google Scholar available over the web. While this material had been present on the web for quite a while, the search engine was not configured to specifically search for only this material; it simply brought them plus other web pages that closely marched the searching parameters. With this feature, “users are now able to specifically such against academic material. ”(Baksik, p 401) To achieve this feat, Google collaborated with publishers so that its search engine spiders could access material that was out of reach because it was blocked by subscription barriers.

Previously, web searchers could only view material that wasn’t incorporated in a site that required a username and a password. Unless they had the specific address to these sites, they would not be able to know if such material even existed. Following the understanding between Google and these publishing sites, its search engine could now include the contents of password-protected sites in its search content. However, there is some similarity here with the Print Library Project in that the web searcher won’t be able to view the entire journal if he does not have the password to the publishing site.

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Through this, Google will continue to recognize the publishers as the full copyright holders of the journal in question. Adding to this, it is quite clear that the number of subscriptions these sites is bound to increase due to the free expanded coverage being offered by Google. “Google does not earn money off of any new subscriptions generated between searchers and publishers.

” (Baksik, p 401) To be able to increase the efficiency and the reliability of the search engine, Google required that the publishing firms allow the search spiders to fully access the published data which did raise eye brows in the area of copy right infringement.

These entire journals were copied into the search engine’s databases and periodically updated. When a web searcher typed in the key words, the search results would at least show some text from the journal that relate to the search topic. The major controversy with Google Scholar probably is the company’s anti-cloaking policy. Here, the web searcher is relying on Google to make the informed decision of what published material is most relevant yet the programmer who crafted the algorithm is most probably much less of an expert than the person searching.

Shouldn’t the person searching be the one to determine which journal content is the most relevant before subscribing to the respective site? The murky waters of intellectual properties and copyright laws make this highly unlikely. (Baksik, p 408) Wide Acceptance for Google Scholar Publishing Companies have been more receptive to Google Scholar due to the increased accessibility it has provided to their content and plus a variety of other reasons. The first one is they are looking at expanding their business models and the ever expanding internet gives them the necessary platform.

Scholarly journal publishers are also looking at increasing accessibility to their content through open access. While most of them had restricted access to paying-only members for the sake of revenue generation and protecting the author’s intellectual rights, this venture frustrated web searchers who were simply browsing for relevant material that could meet their search parameters. They therefore relied on other freely accessible sites to conduct their research. The third reason is these firms are looking at cutting costs especially in the area of copy-editing which is both time and resource consuming.

Using the internet saves on not only the costs but the staff workers that go into the reproduction of each journal. Lastly, “management of copyright and re-use policies for these journals is independent of their open access policies. ”(Byrd et al: 2005) What most industry experts agree on with Google Scholar is it has increased awareness of already published material. The links to various libraries has witnessed an increase in the number of researchers visiting libraries to find specific articles. “It has raised the awareness and use of libraries as an important offline research resource. ”(Band, 2005)