Google Scholar as a tool for discovering journal articles in library and information science

摘要

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to measure the coverage of Google Scholar for Library andrnInformation Science (LIS) journal literature as identified by a list of core LIS journals from a study byrnSchlogl and Petschnig.rnDesign/methodology/approach - The paper checked every article from 35 major LIS journalsrnfrom the years 2004 to 2006 for availability in Google Scholar. It also collected information on the typernof availability - whether a certain article was available as a PDF for a fee, as a free PDF or as arnpreprint.rnFindings - The paper found that only some journals are completely indexed by Google Scholar, thatrnthe ratio of versions available depends on the type of publisher, and that availability varies a lot fromrnjournal to journal. Google Scholar cannot substitute for abstracting and indexing services in that itrndoes not cover the complete literature of the field. However, it can be used in many cases to easily findrnavailable full texts of articles already identified using another tool.rnOriginality/value - The study differs from other Google Scholar coverage studies in that it takesrninto account not only whether an article is indexed in Google Scholar at all, but also the type ofrnavailability.