Open Access News

News from the open access movement


Monday, April 12, 2004

Skeptical eye on Google repository searching

Henk Ellermann, Google Searches Repositories: So What Does Google Search For?, -=(In Between)=-:, April 12, 2004. Ellermann puts the brakes on enthusiasm for Google's proposed federated repository searching, reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education on Friday, April 9 (see earlier OAN posting.) His questions relate to the actual number of documents concerned; press accounts have said the 17 repositories hold an average of 1000 documents, but Ellermann's calculations show a number considerably smaller. He maintains that the repository movement has a long way to go to attract and index content and provide reliable access, that there be something for Google users to search and find.