Google Scholar

There is much discussion about the latest addition to the Google suite: Google Scholar (http://scholar.google.com).

What is it? It's a Google search that presents results specific to scholarly publications, including peer-reviewed materials. It has has opened up access to what is kind of "invisible" to most search engines. Neat concept huh! There may be some pluses to using it, but there are also some very concerning minuses. Read on.

Why would I use it?
Maybe because you have cabin fever. Maybe you yearn to get into the garden, but the ground is still too hard to dig so you have nothing better to do. No really, maybe it's because you are frustrated with not getting what you want when doing a Medline or CINAHL search.

All really good reasons to consider using this tool. But let me tell you some reasons to be wary of resorting to such a search.

Why wouldn't I use it?
Because the search process, and therefore the result set, is not focused enough to give you the specificity that your search demands. Sure you get hits, and in no time flat. (I did one on Diabetes and got "results of about 978,000 for diabetes in 0.04 seconds") .

In this day and age of medical liability we need to be sure that we are getting all of the research, and most particularly the right research to satisfy the question. Search terms need to be precise, and then results refined in order to get information that matches the question.

Also, with Google Scholar, there is no indication of relevancy of the hit list to your search. On the other hand, a directed search in a specific database such as CINAHL will yield very high relevancy to your question.

Lastly, there is no reasonable date sequence. My diabetes search pulled up (in this order) three 2004 articles, one 1997, then two 1993 articles, then back to 2001. And there was no way to bring the most recent hits to the top of the list. A Medline search can be limited by date, or minimally the search set comes back chronologically sorted.

As nursing professionals, I would like to suggest that if you have any concerns with getting just the right answer to your research question, that you talk to one of the many information professionals that you have available to you. If searching the literature is just not your thing, then we can help you with that. We can show you tricks, give you hints, guide you, or do it with you.

Most of all we are here to make you shine. Just Ask!