[GOAL] Re: Google's role in sustaining the public good to research parallel to developments in open access?
Gary, I think your one-stop shop reason is not why Google scholar dominates. I think instead it is because libraries lack the inhouse capability to build search. Discovery tools are almost universally built by vendors, then libraries rent use of the tool, specifically in order to allow cross database search of paid subscription databases. Open access is not the goal for discovery tool. No, the goal is to get central access and tracking or expensive paid resources. In fact, I have heard criticism of Google Scholar's indexing preprints of articles, and the need to eliminate from student research the non-authoritative materials indexed in Google Scholar, put out as a reason why a discovery tool is a good thing. That goes against discovery of open access, because of course open access is where preprints and drafts may be posted then mistaken for final copies. In my land, law library land, the institutional repository platform Digital Commons has a monopoly on all US law school institutional repositories other than Texas Tech. Digital Commons lets you publish metadata in a format compatible with OAI-PMH harversters, but acording to the documentatoin on its website does not allow you to harvest metadata. A library renting Digital Commons doesn't get an OAI-PMH harvester, and can't use this rented tool to make a portal to other institutions' open access resources. The trend towards this particular hosted platform is not just a trend towards high levels of customer support and a hidden IT backend (probably necessary for widespread participation), but also a trend away from the ability for the library community to build searches across collections (a less obvious and maybe negative direction to go). Google is a go-to place for search because the people who work at Google are able to build a search engine. They are able to build Google. The people who work at the library are, for the most part, unable to build a search engine. They are able to do an RFI, decide what to pay, look at some products, and then pay lots of money to rent access to a search engine. Librarians are not able to build EBSCO Discovery Service. (Applause to consortiums building in-house discovery tools. But presently, they are few and far between.) Librarians aren't able to build Google Scholar. That's why Google Scholar is dominant. That's why search is controled by a private corporation. The way to get better discovery of open access resources is to (1) be aware of it and try to get your open access material indexed in whatever search engine people are using, and (2) eventually build the search engine from within the library community and make biases in that search engine transparent. Oh, and let's all keep in mind, Google Scholar indexes open access material, but it is not an open access search engine. Google Scholar indexes subscription resources as well as open access. As a library, you report to Google Scholar what resources you subscribe to, so that it gives patrons your link-resolver. It's clearly not trying to be solely an open access discovery tool. -Wilhelmina Randtke On Sat, Jul 14, 2012 at 1:39 PM, Omega Alpha Open Access oa.openacc...@gmail.com wrote: Les/Peter, The problem I see with the many is the problem of FRAGMENTATION of search and discovery. If I put my academic librarian hat on for a moment and observe the way our students (and frankly, faculty too) tend to seek for needed/relevant information, they want one-stop convenience. They don't want to have to go to numerous sites to search for stuff. That is why Google is such a compelling experience. We have recently implemented EBSCO Discovery Service on our campus as a way to bring that convenience of Google-like search and discovery to vetted library resources. But at present, open access resources are only a small portion of this (though I believe EDS does search OAIster, DOAJ [though mainly at the journal level only], BioMed, etc.). OK, we might applaud Microsoft for trying to bring competition into the market by providing a similar experience to academic search. But am I REALLY going to duplicate my search efforts between 2 or more search engines? This brings me back to the original point: Google is great. But can/ought we continue to rely so heavily on Google (or Bing/Academic Search, etc.) to assure continued indexing to open access literature? Second, I noticed you referred to REPOSITORY indexing services. Here I think we may encounter a disciplinary difference. In the humanities, and especially religious studies/theology, I believe the growth of open access has a much better shot via the JOURNALS (Gold) route. I don't see any problem with humanities scholars utilizing repositories for practical preservation and supplemental discoverability. But this is not going to be enough to encourage a shift to OA. Scholarly tradition in the humanities strongly values associating one's research with textual artifacts and
[GOAL] Re: Google's role in sustaining the public good to research parallel to developments in open access?
Les/Peter, The problem I see with the many is the problem of FRAGMENTATION of search and discovery. If I put my academic librarian hat on for a moment and observe the way our students (and frankly, faculty too) tend to seek for needed/relevant information, they want one-stop convenience. They don't want to have to go to numerous sites to search for stuff. That is why Google is such a compelling experience. We have recently implemented EBSCO Discovery Service on our campus as a way to bring that convenience of Google-like search and discovery to vetted library resources. But at present, open access resources are only a small portion of this (though I believe EDS does search OAIster, DOAJ [though mainly at the journal level only], BioMed, etc.). OK, we might applaud Microsoft for trying to bring competition into the market by providing a similar experience to academic search. But am I REALLY going to duplicate my search efforts between 2 or more search engines? This brings me back to the original point: Google is great. But can/ought we continue to rely so heavily on Google (or Bing/Academic Search, etc.) to assure continued indexing to open access literature? Second, I noticed you referred to REPOSITORY indexing services. Here I think we may encounter a disciplinary difference. In the humanities, and especially religious studies/theology, I believe the growth of open access has a much better shot via the JOURNALS (Gold) route. I don't see any problem with humanities scholars utilizing repositories for practical preservation and supplemental discoverability. But this is not going to be enough to encourage a shift to OA. Scholarly tradition in the humanities strongly values associating one's research with textual artifacts and textual communities that create a sense of historical continuity. They want their research to appear as articles in journals of reputation within their discipline, and to be preserved in the archives of those journals. The first step (and this is the role I have assumed as an OA advocate in religious studies) is to reassure humanist scholars that open access journals can function just as effectively as well-known and well-reputed subscription-based journals have done in the past. Humanities scholars are also concerned with discoverability. Here we have been stressing that OA can do a BETTER job with discoverability because, among other things, we can easily submit their research to indexing through search engines such as Google. Here too, this brings me back to the original point: Google is great. But can/ought we continue to rely so heavily on Google (or Bing/Academic Search, etc.) to assure continued indexing to open access literature? Good weekend to all! Gary F. Daught Omega Alpha | Open Access On Jul 14, 2012, at 7:00 AM, goal-requ...@eprints.org wrote: Message: 2 Date: Sat, 14 Jul 2012 10:29:37 + From: Les A Carr l...@ecs.soton.ac.uk Subject: [GOAL] Re: Google's role in sustaining the public good to research parallel to developments in open access? To: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) goal@eprints.org Cc: Global Open Access List (Successor of AmSci) goal@eprints.org Message-ID: EMEW3|d148925cce8122914a7e596c5be81781o6DBYf03lac|ecs.soton.ac.uk|485ff2db-fc83-4818-b60b-cdefca304...@ecs.soton.ac.uk Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 I'm finding these sentiments puzzling. There are many repository indexing services, such as OAIster, BASE, OpenAIRE and any number of indexing services from the DRIVER stable. (There's also Bing and Microsoft Academic Search.) None of these get much use because Google is so dominant, but there ARE a number to choose from. As Peter says, it's not that difficult. There's all sorts of searching innovations that I'd like to see beyond Google, and Microsoft are trying hard in this space. I'd like to see even more community efforts offering greater utility than spot the word but I guess that these will emerge with the network effect of more OA from more authors. Sent from my iPhone On 13 Jul 2012, at 17:14, Peter Murray-Rust pm...@cam.ac.ukmailto:pm...@cam.ac.uk wrote: On Fri, Jul 13, 2012 at 4:51 PM, Omega Alpha Open Access oa.openacc...@gmail.commailto:oa.openacc...@gmail.com wrote: Les, Greetings. I wasn't questioning the public good Google has contributed *to date*, and I know they aren't the only game in town. However, they are the dominant player. To the degree that indexing is vital for open access research discoverability on the web, don't you think that it is a potential problem for a commercial entity to serve such a crucial role with nothing more than market forces and a promise to be a good corporate citizen to sustain the effort indefinitely? Google Scholar is not yet serving-up ads, but there is really nothing to stop them. I agree with these sentiments - I think it is irresponsible for academia
[GOAL] Re: Google's role in sustaining the public good to research parallel to developments in open access?
It is easy to forget that they are a commercial company and not an official part of the web architecture. However, they are only a commercial company, and just one of the myriad web indexers that account for about 50% of the visits to any OA repository. They have contributed significant public good to research (eg research findability, google scholar), and they would likely contribute vastly more if they weren't hampered by the lack of OA. Sent from my iPhone On 13 Jul 2012, at 15:25, Omega Alpha Open Access oa.openacc...@gmail.commailto:oa.openacc...@gmail.com wrote: Greetings. I get the sense that Google Scholar is becoming the default indexer for open access research in STM with slower but also increasing uptake in the SS and humanities. Google is so nearly ubiquitous now it is easy to forget they are also a commercial company. At some point, a conversation surely needs to happen regarding Google’s role in sustaining the public good to research parallel to developments in open access. Is anyone aware of the status of such a conversation? Thanks. Gary F. Daught Omega Alpha | Open Access Advocate for open access academic publishing in religion and theology oa.openacc...@gmail.commailto:oa.openacc...@gmail.com http://oaopenaccess.wordpress.com ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.orgmailto:GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal ___ GOAL mailing list GOAL@eprints.org http://mailman.ecs.soton.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/goal
