Google Scholar Put To The Test

Companies always claim to be leading in this or pioneering in that.  Google Scholar is less boastful, but still says it “provides a simple way to broadly search for scholarly literature.”  And so Marilyn Christianson, a librarian at Auburn University, put that assertion to the test.

“Test” might not be the right word, though.  Think “crucible” - Christianson’s paper is over 5,000 words long, and contains tables, graphs, and all the percentages you could wish for; she really wanted to know if Google provided access to everything a researcher needs.  On to the conclusion, then, in which “GS” stands for “Google Scholar.”

“Depending on one’s definition of a complete citation, GS indexed between fifty-seven and seventy-seven percent of the articles from the sample core list of journals,” Christianson writes.  “If GS is held to the standard, of, say, the