Comments on: A Useful tool for academic research http://web-owls.com/2006/05/14/a-useful-tool-for-academic-research/ Searching and Researching Tue, 06 Jan 2009 21:12:11 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Web Owls » Blog Archive » Scholars-R-Us http://web-owls.com/2006/05/14/a-useful-tool-for-academic-research/comment-page-1/#comment-156 Web Owls » Blog Archive » Scholars-R-Us Sun, 02 Jul 2006 16:28:53 +0000 http://web-owls.com/2006/05/14/a-useful-tool-for-academic-research/#comment-156 [...] But a lot of scholarly resources aren’t pulled up in a simple search, even they they reside somewhere in the vast reaches of cyber-academia.  They are invisibel to Google and other search engines.  For these, you need some specialty resources like: Google Scholar, of course. Microsoft has a similar, though oddly named, tool at Windows Live Search Academic . Much more cleverly named is the University of Michigan’s OIAster,   which doubtless stands for something…it’s a good collection of scholarly materials that include video, audio, databases and images along with text.  [...] [...] But a lot of scholarly resources aren’t pulled up in a simple search, even they they reside somewhere in the vast reaches of cyber-academia.  They are invisibel to Google and other search engines.  For these, you need some specialty resources like: Google Scholar, of course. Microsoft has a similar, though oddly named, tool at Windows Live Search Academic . Much more cleverly named is the University of Michigan’s OIAster,   which doubtless stands for something…it’s a good collection of scholarly materials that include video, audio, databases and images along with text.  [...]

]]> By: pafalafaga http://web-owls.com/2006/05/14/a-useful-tool-for-academic-research/comment-page-1/#comment-4 pafalafaga Sun, 14 May 2006 15:13:18 +0000 http://web-owls.com/2006/05/14/a-useful-tool-for-academic-research/#comment-4 Ahhh...academic rubbish. Where would the world be without it? Google Scholar is indeed, terrific. But one thing worth noting is an aspect of Google Scholar that is also creeping into a lot of other search results...the inclusion of <i>teaser</i> results from subscription databases. A number of Google search tools can now access material from fee-based data sources. The search results page shows a relevant snippet or two from the source, but to get to the actual document, the searcher has to either subscribe to the database, or pay a one-time fee for accessing an article. This is a two-sided sword. On the one hand, it makes a lot more material available to the searcher, when a database like JSTOR shows up in the results of a Google Scholar search. On the other hand...if you can't actually see the full results without paying a fee, it just seems to take away some of the magic of the internet. Sort of like the difference between Napster and iTunes, I suppose. Oh well...that' life in the modern world. David Sarokin aka pafalafaga Ahhh…academic rubbish. Where would the world be without it?

Google Scholar is indeed, terrific. But one thing worth noting is an aspect of Google Scholar that is also creeping into a lot of other search results…the inclusion of teaser results from subscription databases.

A number of Google search tools can now access material from fee-based data sources. The search results page shows a relevant snippet or two from the source, but to get to the actual document, the searcher has to either subscribe to the database, or pay a one-time fee for accessing an article.

This is a two-sided sword. On the one hand, it makes a lot more material available to the searcher, when a database like JSTOR shows up in the results of a Google Scholar search.

On the other hand…if you can’t actually see the full results without paying a fee, it just seems to take away some of the magic of the internet. Sort of like the difference between Napster and iTunes, I suppose.

Oh well…that’ life in the modern world.

David Sarokin aka pafalafaga

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