The Myth that is Google Scholar

The Myth that is Google Scholar

My hope by now is that many have you have seen the folly / myth that is Google Scholar. As a class using a University database we are privileged to have such extensive, free to use databases at our disposal but the claim that a free to use database of full access articles is just around the corner can be tempting. What many of you have noticed when getting fed up with certain EBSCO search results and relying on the fail safe that is Google Scholar you find Pay Per View results. This is because many of the most relevant results are actually paying Google in some cases for priviledge of position in search results.

If you step outside the realm that is our university library and into the public use, you would be better off using Google Advanced search by .edu domain than trying Google Scholar.

The only issue in our case as many are looking for their field attached to careers is in some cases you may find some of these results are not articles but rather how to obtain your degree and the .edu sites become different universities trying to show you BA's as a social Worker or BA's in Psychology.

Yes with Google Scholar the term free to use sounds great we find many free abstracts but will find many results with Full Text with the low low price of 39.99 for the day L

Why do this when you have a University library databases free and at your disposal considering you did in fact pay for them being a Brandman Student?

Hopefully like Directory of Open Access Journals which was found this week you will find new actual scholarly journals and will venture outside of the bubble that is Google, Google Scholar and Wikipedia…

Mr Mac