Doug Payne, Google Scholar Welcomed, The Scientist, November 23, 2004. Excerpt: 'Open-access publisher BioMed Central (which is a partner with The Scientist) also welcomed the new service. BioMed Central Publisher Jan Velterop said in a statement that the tool maximizes the opportunities offered by Open Access journals and open repositories. "We, along with others in the scientific community, have been talking to Google about offering a service like this for some time. We are very pleased that they have taken this step," Velterop said. However, Michael Eisen, co-founder of another open-access publisher, Public Library of Science (PLoS), pointed out that people using the service will face an important obstacle—many of the articles are only available to journal subscribers. "While Google may have the noble goal of making 'the world's scientific literature universally accessible,' the fact remains that most of the articles returned in a Google Scholar search can only be accessed by those fortunate enough to have a subscription to the relevant journal," he told The Scientist. A PloS spokeswoman added: "Google will find that they can better serve their searchers' needs for access to complete scholarly articles by 'flagging' as open access or ranking more highly those that are freely available online. Such a system would minimize people's frustration at finding an article that looks perfect for their research needs but discovering that they are unable to access it. This frustration is already quite evident in the various threaded discussions occurring online." '
Posted by
Peter Suber at 11/23/2004 07:01:00 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.
