The Search Principle blog

Thanks for the suggestions on a name change: Search Quest, MedSearch, UBC Search Scholar – I laughed at Scholar Bunny.

Changing a blog’s name after year I is a problem if branding is in place; but, keeping yourself in a niche creates perception problems. The issue is why limit myself to Google Scholar?

Let’s try UBC Academic Search – Google Scholar Blog (it’s vaguely alphabetical). The change reflects the addition of Windows Live Academic Search to the search scene. (If Yahoo & Ask get in on the game, who knows?) For now, we have Academic Search and Google Scholar. Further, our purpose will be broader: “To observe, document & comment on the evolution of academic-scholarly searching”.

Information retrieval for physicians, scientists and researchers will continue to be my focus. The many fee-based tools that science libraries subscribe to – like BIOSIS, Cochrane, MEDLINE, Stat!REF, EBSCO, OVID – will be compared to the free tools, Google Scholar & Academic Search. Welcome to fee vs. free searching in Library 2.0!

The URL stays as is (even if the name is loooonger!) …. Happy easter – Dean

A note – nay, a request – to Google Scholar and Academic Search: install a search history feature like Google Personal Search. (I know, privacy advocates don’t like stored searches.)

While you are at it, can you create an e-alerting feature? – Dean

The Scientist e-mailed to ask about my initial concerns and plaudits re: Microsoft’s Windows Live Academic Search. (It’s hard not to get mired down in details about pros/ cons when trying to provide your impressions to the media. An important new skill for librarian bloggers is learning how to talk to the media. I’m not sure I’m getting it right, yet. My advice: be pithy. – Dean)

My concerns:
1. In its beta release this week, Windows Live Academic Search proved how difficult it may be to create a useful academic index on/ to the Web. By concentrating on scholarly content direct from publishers, Microsoft may miss a lot of good content outside these channels: professors’ websites, learning objects, self-archived articles, and conference presentations. Google scholar’s definition of “what is scholarly” (they don’t have one) seems more inclusive than Microsoft’s.

2. Academic search is a bona fide competitor to Google scholar, so be prepared for other search engines to follow: which, for librarians, means more tools to teach, and monitor. The concern is that these free tools may threaten the existence of our commercial vendors like EBSCO, OVID and Web of Science. What would we do then?

My plaudits:

1. Microsoft’s courting of information professionals and publishers suggest that they “get” the new information economy, and have opted to talk to us. Google has offended some librarians by marketing directly to our end-users (scholars) and by diluting our role in information literacy – even making our jobs more difficult, unwieldy.

2. Academic search is Web 2.0 integrated, seamless searching. Its bells and whistles – like self-sort, endless scrolling and results downloading – are features we normally pay for in fee-based tools. If it can address its shortcomings, academic search may yet prove to be an extremely useful tool for scholars in starting their research.

Physicians, health professionals and medical librarians will start to ask themselves: are MEDLINE records loaded into Windows Live Academic Search? If not, why not?

In medicine, searchers are accustomed to the foundation PubMed records provide in searching the open web, and like the inter-operability between Google Scholar, for instance, and PubMed. (This is what you see when linking to PubMed from Scholar: Note: Performing your original search, “myocardial infarction”, in PubMed will retrieve 13,000 citations.) As I am one of the few Canadian medical librarians in touch with the Microsoft team, I’ll be raising this issue on Monday when we talk.

Academic search is markedly different in this respect: publisher records are loaded directly into Academic Search’s database; the idea is to reduce duplication, and variant records/ versions that we see too often in Scholar, skewing citation counts, and leading no-where in some cases. With no PubMed records, Academic search starts to look less useful for physicians.

Generally, medical information retrieval on the open Web is less useful in the absence of linking to important databases like MEDLINE, still the field’s lynchpin. The primary reason for this is better currency in PubMed, a clinical focus, and unless Microsoft can guarantee daily updating like the NLM, it’s easy to miss relevant information. Search engines’ linking back to PubMed is also a reminder: use your MeSH.

I’ll report back here about this question after my discussion with Microsoft on Monday. – Dean

(1908 photo of lake, trees at Walden. Pile of stones represents Thoreau’s cabin.)

Thoreau’s Walden is considered one of the most complex and influential books in American lit. It seems relevant today – and yet, how did Thoreau get anything done without a computer? (Thoreau wrote millions of words in his lifetime that fill multi-volumes, all in indecipherable handwriting.) Moreover, how did Thoreau do any research from that cabin the woods? He used the Gutenberg technology: books.

Read your favorite author this weekend, be it Thoreau, or John Grogan. If you can, put the laptop away. Good words are an important luxury; they have a way of providing comfort, consoling us during the holidays, Easter, Passover. For a few days, forget about the Web. Take a blog-cation. Take a break from search.

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But next week, we’ll be back. For academics, especially those who need to find “the best words in the best order”, as Samuel Taylor Coleridge said about great writing, I wonder if Academic will fulfill its promise? (Readers have asked me “Why the hype”?)

Response times on Academic have varied considerably this week. Is Microsoft able to handle the volume of requests? Does Microsoft have the firepower of Google? We need to be able to search across the entire corpus of scholarly literature and retrieve relevant documents in seconds (not several, though, please). I know the team at Microsoft has been slogging hard, so thanks for your efforts. But please fix.

Although scholarly content in Academic will be sparse for a while (did I ask: where is the medical content?), take a look around for modern maladies such as heart disease, tumors and anxiety. (btw, Thoreau died of tuberculosis in 1862.)

For those of a literary bent, you can also travel down Walden pond. – Dean

Inevitable comparisons between Google scholar and Windows Live Academic Search (WLAS) have started to be made. At this point, however, we’re all in a search hangover: comparisons are probably not helpful, or even useful now.

Keep in mind that Academic is very much in beta, and sixteen months behind Google Scholar. Building a database is hard work. And, apart from some great functional aspects, Microsoft seems to be farther behind Google and where Scholar was on its release – especially content-wise. Not surprisingly, librarians are asking questions: did Microsoft release Academic prematurely? How fast can we expect improvements? Remember Mr. Gates, we’re impatient out here in Searchville.

Product development should include incremental change and a published schedule. So what about it Microsoft? In the meantime, shall I continue to use Google scholar until the content comes up to par? I can’t recommend Academic to users, just yet (my doctors are champing at the bit). That’s stretching our acceptance of search engines too far.

In terms of staying current with Academic Search, the onus should be on search bloggers like myself to monitor progress. My recommendation? Read your favorite blogs (daily, if you must). We’ll try to keep you current with what’s happening. No point building a negative view of Academic unnecessarily. Oh, and stay patient.

A few comments/ issues to remember for librarians in academia:

1. Linking, open URLs: Microsoft is working with linkresolver vendors to provide researchers with easy access to local library holdings. When libraries participate in Academic, Microsoft will identify when users are affiliated with your library by IP. Every search will be accompanied by links to your library’s OpenURL resolver, and “user preferences” will eventually be added in Academic to allow settings (as in Google scholar). No one knows the timelines, yet.

2. Coverage and depth: Academic has published a list of journal content, which is admirable. (Google scholar has never produced one). Open Archive Initiative (OAI) repositories are included, and publishers like ACM, IEEE, Elsevier Science, Wiley, Nature. Though the initial release concentrates on computer science, electrical engineering and physics, search bloggers are reassured by Microsoft’s statement “that content will expand rapidly in the first six months“. Let’s hope so.

3. Sorting results: Academic is already better than Scholar in this regard, in that you can sort by publication date, author, journal and conference.

4. Window panes: preview panes give a much-needed feel of integration to Academic. User frustration should be minimal. Mouse over brief left-pane results to show more details on the right: author, publication, issue/ volume number, date, and article abstract (or first lines of abstract). Users should be able to decide quickly whether their search results are worth pursuing, or not.

5. Import/ export citations: the preview pane should save time for searchers when importing. View bibliographic information in BibTeX or EndNote format first, then copy and paste citations into your management software program. <img alt=”mlas.jpg” src=”https://blogs.ubc.ca/googlescholar/files/2009/02/mlas.jpg” width=”113″ height=”55″ class=”right” /

ps. Finally, the controversial but potentially useful personalization feature: macros.

Now that Academic provides the ability to build macros, users can create tighter, refined searches to get specific results. This should facilitate a more targeted “less noisy” search experience. But macros depend on the tech-savvy to build them.

How might macros be used in academia? First, it’s possible that professors could create macros for their students to direct them to specific Web content relevant to courses; researchers could create macros to search specific sites/ sources to stay current (think medical portal, again). But macros are a new, untested technology. We’ll see if they catch on in the scholarly community (and medicine), or if they’re a passing fancy.

Welcome! Windows Live Academic Search. You’ve got a long way to go baby.

What a day! Though we – those of us invited to Microsoft – were embargoed (sworn to secrecy – :bah:) re: Windows Live Academic Search until 9pm PST, I’ve been blabbing and blogging since Saturday. Do you think I’ve contravened some search code? Here is the Seattle Post Intelligencer article by Todd Bishop. Here’s Scott Carlson’s article “Challenging Google, Microsoft Unveils a Search Tool for Online Scholarly Articles” in the Chronicle of Higher Education. And a quote (or two) in InfoWorld, and several other computer magazines here.

ps. Jon Brassey is right: no medical content? Only computer science, electrical engineering and physics? Here’s a list of journal content in MLAS. (Medicine will be there in the collections, like Blackwell, Elsevier, Kluwer, Nature etc. btw, tonite, MLAS (muh-lass) is not working in Canada, and slower than muh-lasses. 🙂 nite, nite

On Saturday April 8th 2006, my whole, crazy wild ride as a blogger came to a head: Microsoft’s invitation and celebrating UBC-GSB’s first birthday. I’ve had fun educating my users via this blog, and exploring communication and networking via technology. (If you’ve ever thought of blogging, I say do it). The time may be right, however, for me to consider a name change (of the blog, not me). It was mentioned a few times by other bloggers at Microsoft. Why don’t you broaden the name of your blog? We thought you only discussed Google scholar! (Do you have any suggestions for a new blog handle? I want to stay in the area of searching/ info-retrieval in medicine.)

ps. I’ll blog-answer this question later: “If you were a top exec at OVID, EBSCO, Dialog, etc. wouldn’t you be worried about the trend toward free academic searching on the open web”?

ps. Highlights from Year I: BMJ’s request How Google is changing medicine; the fuss it caused, blogging & media, um…let’s see….apophenia?

I’ve had e-mails from readers asking me about Microsoft Academic Search, and I can at least tell you a little bit along the lines of what’s reported in PC World. (A few things are confidential until Tuesday, but not because I signed an NDA).

First, the overall concept of Microsoft Academic Search is similar to Google Scholar in that “it allows users to search across the Web for articles in academic journals, databases like PubMed and OA repositories” – and eventually it will point to print books and/ or articles available in local libraries. (To give you an overall feel, see the non-academic Microsoft Windows Live Search. Check out the cool image search, live feeds and “macros”, the arrow to the right of feeds).

But Academic Search has some unique features, and is a worthy competitor for Google scholar. Time will tell whether users find it easily navigable. Here’s a quick list of pros and cons (what struck me during my trip to Microsoft):

Positives:
1. Personalization – create macros to customize display (think your own portal);
2. Split screen format – search results are displayed on split screens with brief cites on a left pane; on the right pane, one full abstract is viewable at a time;
3. “Smart” scrolling – endless scrolling means no jump to next page (a negative?);
4. Slider – a slider application at top allows manipulating # of citations to review;
5. Citation importing feature – results imported in two steps into Endnote etc. (but rumours are Microsoft will have its own citation software for use within Windows);
6. Index coverage – unlike Scholar, Microsoft will be upfront about what’s in MAS, including open access content. (Rumours are MAS will index Elsevier, unlike GS).
7. Document ordering via the British Library – (like Scholar).

Negatives:

1. No citation/cited by searching – no “cited by” feature is a disappointment, especially in the absence of any subject access, metathesauri, controlled vocabularies; (Microsoft does not rule out citation searching for later, however).
2. No advanced search page (yet);
3. No subject channel search (think, Google scholar advanced)
4. No field search (yet);
5. No visible/ viewable history of search queries.
6. Canadian content – to be assessed

You know how I like lists! More later on my thoughts about what “Academic Search” might mean for the future of scholarly research, and what happens to commercial databases like Dialog, EBSCO, OVID and meta-search tools like the Trip Database, or SumSearch.

Finally, I’ll talk about where portals might fit into this search environment now that Microsoft is going macros/ and offering personalizable search (ie. medical, health, science, “what have you”).

Gosh – what’s next for scholarly research out on the open web? Do you think Yahoo or Ask.com will come up with academic search tools – Yahoo Research Search? Scholar Ask?

If you were a top exec at OVID, CSA or EBCSO, wouldn’t you be a little worried about this trend? Perhaps a day will come when search will be open access; and, libraries won’t get charged high subscription prices.

Search is a huge part of the Web’s future, and Microsoft – currently the 3rd most popular search engine – knows it. Bill Gates, the world’s richest man, dragged his heels on search until about fifteen months ago when he decided to play catch-up with Yahoo and Google – his main rivals in search.

But when you’re Microsoft, playing catch-up is not as hard as it might be for lesser competitors. And, as I learned yesterday during my visit to Microsoft’s sprawling Redmond campus in Seattle, this is a nimble company that marshals its resources and can design new products in record time. Enter, the purpose of my visit: Microsoft Live Academic Search (MAS).

Though it’s official worldwide launch is Tuesday April 11th, 2006, a group of librarians and information professionals (and, as we learned yesterday, a number of publishers) were brought in to review Microsoft’s Academic Search. The librarians were asked to comment on the concept, look and functionality of the tool, one that is designed to go head-to-head with Google scholar.

False modesty aside, why did Microsoft want to talk to me anyway? Why librarians at all, let alone a Canadian medical one? First, librarians – especially medical librarians – know search. We know what end-users need/ want. Back in 1995, we were among the first information professionals to confront the challenges of end-user searching arising from the freely-searchable primary database in biomedicine: MEDLINE. Thus, we understand what works and what doesn’t for UI – user-interface design. The folks at Microsoft seemed to understand that about us; hence, our invitation.

But you probably want to know: what did I think of Microsoft Academic Search? Was I impressed? In short, I wasn’t bowled over, but I wasn’t disappointed either. Given the MAS team has worked like demons for ~ five months, they’ve come up with a useful tool. But it’s only the start of what will likely be a protracted period of product development.

It was also gratifying that Microsoft showed interest in communicating with a front-line reference librarian – did I mention that? I did my level best to make honest, constructive comments to Mike Buschman (a librarian) and Thiru – two affable guys that hosted us. Other pivotal members of the MAS team were Eric, and Jeanne Lewis (keep her name in your prayers, as she is in cancer recovery).

During the day, I listened to (and debated with) the other librarians (and fellow search bloggers) invited to this shindig: the puckish Steven Cohen and the wise Marydee Ojala of Online magazine. I felt that they saw things about the product that I hadn’t. (Oh, Elizabeth Lawley on sabbatical from Rochester also got in on the debate. The Scobleizer also came into the room. Steven’s jaw dropped.)

This Microsoft trip was certainly just as interesting as any seminar, and it got me thinking about my role as a medical librarian in influencing the direction and design of search tools. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you more about Microsoft Academic Search, its pros and cons, and why Google scholar will have to watch its back – a formidable new competitor is on the block. Over and out (for now).