Professional Forum
Tuesday, November 28, 2006, 2pm-4pm
Central Library 315A 

Present: S. Beckett, S. Jones, K. Kelly, F. Wills, G. Trkay, T. Lindsay, H. Scalf, K. Hopkins, R. Brock, D. Morgan, S. Sappington, D. Kelly, J. Wellvang, D. Schrag, M. Doran, N. Anderson, J. Martinek, L. Worchester, B. Hussman, A. Kelly, J. Been, T. Wingfield, R. Holmes

Topic: Google Scholar Friend or Foe?

PAF was given the article Google Scholar and the Library Web Site: the Early Response by ARL Libraries by Laura B. Mullen and Karen A. Hartman.

 Discussion ensued. Major points discussed:

• If we use Google Scholar do we really want to keep OneSearch? How do these products relate to one another? Concerns included too many places to do similar kinds of searching, also that different choices for searching would be good.
• What would the cost impact be for us to “turn-on” Google Scholar? Holmes stated it would mostly involve some IOP staff & Michael Doran and take maybe a week. This was just a preliminary estimate!
• OpenAccess is what we are pushing and Google Scholar also supports this point of view.
• How well are the humanities represented in Google Scholar? Beckett searched “Tom Sawyer” and discussion then turned to relevance and the Google algorithm. 
• How to cite through Google Scholar? Becket used RefWorks & Trkay stated this worked better via Google Scholar than through EBSCO.

Question posed to PAF: was the format for discussion what drew you here today or the topic? One librarian answered “the topic”, while others nodded heads in agreement.