BYU ScholarsArchive BYU ScholarsArchive How Scholarly Is Google Scholar? A Comparison of Google How Scholarly Is Google Scholar? A Comparison of Google Scholar to Library Databases Scholar to Library Databases
It is found that GS is, on average, 17.6% more scholarly than materials found only in library databases and that there is no statistically significant difference between the scholarliness of materials found in GS across disciplines.
Abstract
Google Scholar (GS) was released as a beta product in November of 2004. Since then, GS has been scrutinized and questioned by many in academia and the library field. Our objectives in undertaking this study were to determine how scholarly GS is in comparison with traditional library resources and to determine if the scholarliness of materials found in GS varies across disciplines. We found that GS is, on average, 17.6% more scholarly than materials found only in library databases and that there is no statistically significant difference between the scholarliness of materials found in GS across disciplines.