The Digital Librarian weblog was down for quite a while – I was waiting for it to come back up before linking to this interesting tidbit. The blog came back earlier this month but I missed it – here’s the new RSS 2.0 feed.
Google Scholar Terms of Service
So, I started reading Google Scholar’s Terms of Service. I don’t know if any library has put Google Scholar on their library website, but if they have, I seriously doubt they have read the terms. One choice nugget:
“1.5 Exclusivity. You agree that, during the Term, Google will be the exclusive provider of Internet search services on the Site. You further understand that Google will provide the Service on a nonexclusive basis, and that Google will continue to customize and provide its services to other parties for use in connection with a variety of applications, including search engine applications.”
In addition to the pandora’s box the above might open up, Google does not allow search results to be opened up into a seperate window, be captured in a frame, or any sort of manipulation whatsoever. In other words, there is no ability to combine Google Scholar in a meta-search engine. I’m not an expert in library / database vendor licensing, but this seems like a fairly restrictive license by any means.