RE: DATABASES: Google Scholar

["David P. Dillard" <jwne@astro.ocis.temple.edu>]

This quote from one article in one of my two posts may also be useful in
the interpretation of what is happening.

"Topics covered include medicine, physics, economics and computer science.
Documents in the Google Scholar search index are written in English,
German, French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese, the company said."

New Google Scholar search service aimed at academics
By Laura Rohde
The Industry Standard
"Internet News for the Internet Business"
November 18, 2004
<http://www.thestandard.com/internetnews/000628.php>

The coverage in some disciplines is very uneven in juxtaposition to the
coverage of other subject fields.

A search of the phrase in quotation marks in Google Scholar "internet
search engines" produces some somewhat more modern material, for example.

PDF] Internet search enginesfluctuations in document accessibility W
Mettrop, P Nieuwenhuysen, H Smulders - Cited by 13 ... www.aslib.com.
INTERNET SEARCH ENGINES FLUCTUATIONS IN DOCUMENT ACCESSIBILITY. WOUTER
METTROP wouter.mettrop@cwi.nl. Centrum voor ... Journal of Documentation,
2001 - ingenta.com - ingenta.com

But even here, the bulk of the material is from 1999 and well before from
the sample observed, so one can begin to conclude that this source is
abudant in dated information.

A search of the word diabetes did, however, produce some much newer
citations.

The Wisconsin epidemiologic study of diabetic retinopathy. III. Prevalence
and risk of diabetic D Care - Cited by 121 ... In a population-based study
in southern Wisconsin, 1,370 patients given diagnoses of diabetes at age
30 years or older were examined using standard protocols ... Diabetes
Care, 2004 - archopht.ama-assn.org - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Lipoprotein (a) levels and risk of coronary heart disease in men. The
lipid Research Clinics D Care - Cited by 132 ... Lipoprotein(a) Is an
Independent Risk Factor for Peripheral Arterial Disease in Chinese Type 2
Diabetic Patients in Taiwan Tseng Diabetes Care 2004;27:517-521. ...
Diabetes Care, 2004 - jama.ama-assn.org - ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

But the diabetes search also produced quite a few old citations.

Somebody on the Mediev-L discussion group wanted to know if the advent of
Google Scholar meant that the library at this person's school was now at
liberty to cancel a number of expensive databases.  From what I am reading
in a variety of places and from limited observation, this would be a
dreadful move.  Like search engines in general, this resource will be good
for what one can get out of it, but to rely on it as a serious research
tool for important research would be dangerous to state the case mildly.  
It is kind of like shopping at the dollar store.  You may find things
there that you can use, but one is not going to go there with their week's
shopping list.


Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@astro.temple.edu
<http://groups.yahoo.com/group/net-gold>
<http://www.edu-cyberpg.com/ringleaders/davidd.html>
<http://www.kovacs.com/medref-l/medref-l.html>
<http://listserv.temple.edu/archives/net-gold.html>
<http://www.LIFEofFlorida.org>
World Business Community Advisor
<http://www.WorldBusinessCommunity.org>

===========================================

On Fri, 19 Nov 2004, Masterson, Michele wrote:

> David:

> You make a very interesting point in your first link:

> "I can testify after just one search that the results found may include
> older documents. I did a search on my own name and found only one result,
> my oldest publication."

> After I did several searches using various keywords, most of the results
> yielded material citing works published in the mid-'90s...I could not find
> anything from 2000 onward. Perhaps this is because Scholar is still in
> beta????

> Michele Masterson
> Editor/Analyst
> Professional Publishing Report
> Simba Information
> www.simbanet.com
> 203-325-8193 x109