Words used in searching often have different connotations, and a search may reveal content related to a different meaning of a word, although in practice such situations are rare. A search may show up many references of no academic value at all, not necessarily because the quality of the content to which a link is provided is poor, but because the content is not of relevance to learning or research. Valuable though the main Google search engine is, its limitations for anybody searching for academic content are readily observable. This revolution in the behavior of people from every academic generation has crept up on us. Now it is out in the open that those of us in the academic world who have passed the student phase in our lives also use Google extensively! And we use Google for exactly the same reasons as students: ease of use, saving time, and access to a wide range of resources. That students would use Google fits with our prejudice about young people always wanting an easy solution without too much work, and using their familiarity with the new technology to achieve that result. It is easy to use, saves them time in writing essays, and links to a vast amount of information. We can easily believe that students would take to Google like ducks to water. The extent to which the use of the Google search engine has permeated academic culture is illustrated by a single statistic from a recent survey of academic authors: 72% of authors are using the Google search engine to search for scholarly articles. Google Scholar: the specialist shop in the Google shopping mall Google Scholar will face competition and have to keep pace with user expectations and technological developments. Use of Google Scholar will benefit the authors and managers of open access content, but there are opportunities for all types of academic content providers in the way Google Scholar is set up. The Google Scholar service has the potential to grow if it develops close contacts with both providers and users of academic information. The vast number of Web sites containing potentially relevant information requires a search engine ranging over many millions of Web sites but with the ability to target very specific types of information. The development of the specialist Google Scholar search service will benefit the academic community in bringing to their attention content more relevant to their needs.

Use of the Google search engine is commonplace amongst all sectors of the academic community.

Google scholar database