I tried to leave the following comment at The Digital Librarian, but there seems to be an error in their comment code – several tries and I couldn’t get it to go. I also couldn’t find any contact information, so I’m hoping posting here will eventually get back to the author. (c’mon, not even an "about me" link?)
Link: The Digital Librarian: R.I.P 2005 – Federated Search.
My comment:
Here’s a fly in the ointment, paraphrased from a much more
deep-thinking colleague.
The Schoogle federated search model works well (or will work well eventually) with providers of full text content because it’s in their best interest to get their content before the eyes of the general public so the general public will buy their articles.
But what incentive is there for the producer of a strictly
A&I database to open its content to Schoogle? Right now these databases, say Biological
Abstracts for instance, make their money by selling their content to
libraries. What income would they derive
if they gave it all away to Schoogle?You ask, "If Google becomes a better provider of
scholarly articles and information than a typical university library…",
but Google may not ever become a more comprehensive provider. Right now they sure lead the way for
convenience, which goes a long way for the typical researcher, but I’m not sure
they’ll ever be the most comprehensive. Could be wrong, that’s just my opinion.
Having said that, I have to agree that I have yet to see a
federated search tool that a typical student would choose to use before
Schoogle!
Comments
2 Responses to “The Digital Librarian: R.I.P 2005 – Federated Search”
So, from the guy who posts the digital librarian blog, I apologize for the comments not seeming to work. They actually all get posted to a queue for approval – it’s the only was I can seem to keep comments open without being spammed to death.
Good point on the about link. I’ll see about adding something there 🙂
So, 2nd comment, based on the post: Google must be licensing much of the content already from providers in order to index it; could it not only be a matter of time before they work out a business model where Google Scholar does indeed provide the full text directly to the public? In fact, the database providers will not only increase their visibility, but potentially their revenue. I’m not saying this is going to happen, but the door is open.