Google Scholar Plays Catch Up With PubMed

Google Scholar Plays Catch Up With PubMed - Google Scholar is almost a full year behind in indexing PubMed records, writes Rita Vine, professional librarian, Web search trainer and Web site evaluator. “No serious researcher interested in current medical information or practice excellence should rely on Google Scholar for up to date information,” says Vine. The problem is that many medical students and their faculty do, and academic librarians have been hard put to explain the deep limitations of these “quick, one-box tools like Google Scholar and other search engines.” Vine says that while it’s widely believed that Google Scholar searches current PubMed Medline records, its search capability tends to peter out after February-March 2004. In fact, in a test on the 2004-2005 period, Google delivered 29,500 records compared with PubMed’s 658,000 over the same time period. “Google Scholar does not search Medline,” says Vine. “It searches whatever Medline records NLM happened to give Google. We have no idea when NLM gave Google the records. We can’t anticipate when the next batch will be delivered and the Google Scholar database updated. Remember, Google Scholar is just BETA. PubMed is… well, decidedly NOT beta, and full of the important checks and balances that make it so special.”