Mark Chillingworth, Google Scholar gets OpenURL links, Information World Review, June 1, 2005. Excerpt: 'Google has adopted OpenURL technology for its Google Scholar initiative, after academic information professionals expressed fears that students using the search engine will be unable to discover the resources available from their institutes. "Google Scholar needs OpenURL in order to link users to the appropriate copy - a subscription paid article - rather than the publisher's home page," said Ex Libris marketing VP Jenny Walker of the initial weaknesses in Scholar. Library automation (LA) applications from Ex Libris, Serials Solutions and Openly Informatics now provide OpenURL Link Resolving tools to Scholar following successful lobbying from vendors and universities. Google has confirmed that institutional collections will feature prominently within search results. Although Google Scholar surprised the information industry, Google is said to have been startled by the sector's complexities. "The library world is saturated with metadata, and so far Google has been able to dodge this," said JR Jenkins, product manager at Serial Solutions, adding that if Google is to be successful as an academic search resource, it will have to tackle the complex metadata which exists....As part of the OpenURL adoption, Google has called on libraries to provide their e-journal holdings before it will enable the links, a demand concerning many information professionals. Garry Horrocks, UK e-Information Group (UKeIG) chair said: "This could lead to an unfair advantage to Google and what would they do with all this information?"'
Posted by
Peter Suber at 6/01/2005 12:57:00 PM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
