Google Scholar Links with Libs.

Google Scholar may be a useful tool, but when users search for an item, how do they know it's in their library's collection? When Google Scholar launched last year (see News, LJ 1/05, p. 22), librarians working with the OpenURL standard—which helps resolve links in a user-specific fashion—recognized that link resolvers and Google Scholar would be a good match.

Since February, some 28 libraries, mainly at U.S. universities, have been testing institutional access in a pilot project, using the link resolver product each has purchased. If a user is working at a computer in the library, the access information comes up automatically; if not, the user must set specific preferences when using Google Scholar.

"I don't think it'll compete with traditional A&I databases that are done well, but I imagine it would definitely compete with any providers that are searching the open web," observed John McDonald, acquisitions librarian at Caltech. Among the link resolvers involved are SFX by Ex Libris, Article Linker by Serials Solutions, and 1Cate by Openly Informatics. "We would like to work with everybody," said Anurag Acharya, the principal engineer behind Google Scholar. The pilot is expanding: Serials Solutions in March invited some 200 of its Article Linker clients to join the experiment.

Once a library authorizes the company providing the link resolver to give Google its holdings, Google then highlights links in Google Scholar results pages that cite items the library holds. Eric Van de Velde, director of library information technology at Caltech and chair of the NISO OpenURL Standardization Committee, said the pilot is working well, "but right now [Google is] only putting OpenURLs on very limited material. We'd like them to broaden that."

Acharya said that it was an issue of technology: "Different link resolvers from different vendors have different knowledge bases." While journal articles that have PubMed IDs and DOIs (digital object identifiers) typically turn up appropriate library links in a Google Scholar search, neither Acharya nor librarians interviewed could estimate what percentage of results lack those links.

"Items like preprints and anything from institutional repositories are indexed in Google Scholar, but they're not going to have those identifiers," Caltech's McDonald said. "Libraries are going to have to work with Google to make sure there are other identifiers."

Currently, Google Scholar, announced as "one of the ways in which we are giving back to the research community," is free. Will there be a charge? "There is no cost associated with institutional access," Acharya said. And advertising? "It's possible down the line."