Searching for science
Search engines have gained tremendous importance in the last decade. Google has established itself as the main generic engine, releasing spin-offs such as Google Scholar; while Elsevier has developed Scirus, its own dedicated search platform for scientists.
When it comes to conducting research, I believe that:
A) Search engines are the best tools available because they deliver rapid results.
B) Search engines are useful, but I’m worried they result in complacency and inhibit in-depth research, particularly among young academics.
C) Search engines are not an alternative to library resources, which are much more comprehensive.
If you had to choose one of the above statements, which one would it be and why?
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October 5th, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Journal: Veterinary Immunology & Immunopathology
I opt for C: one cannot accept to miss important information. That would allow one to choose the wrong approaches.
But A can be a choice when one has to get some ’superficial’ information quickly. And from this initial information, if needed, one may opt to do a thorough library search later.
I do not agree with B. In research, the consequences of being complacent, in whatever aspect, will be felt quickly and force one to be more careful.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:32 pm
This is an excellent question/inquiry. All three options for responses have merit. I believe that, at the present time, B is perhaps most appropriate. Search engines, at the least, add to the “lazy” factor..espeically for less experienced and less motivated researchers. It encourages complacency, with most uses having no clue as engines work, differ from one another, or yield “complete” and/or “effective” research efforts.
September 13th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
B and in the very near future A.
OMEGA, The International Journal of Management Science.
September 11th, 2006 at 3:38 pm
B. Search engines are useful, but I’m worried they result in complacency and inhibit in-depth research, particularly among young academics.
September 8th, 2006 at 5:02 pm
My journal is Quaternary Research .
A complacent academic, of any age, doesn’t need an electronic crutch to maintain his or her serenity. Blaming that on the research tool is liked blaming a hammer for missing the nail. That said, library resources are more diverse but not necessarily more comprehensive. They’re just different, and sometimes that difference is important (but more commonly, it’s not).
Would a researcher who only visited the library and never used search engines produce work that was consistently superior, by today’s standards, to another who only used what he or she could find at their desktop? I think not. So my “choice,” though pointlessly constrained by the question, would be A.
September 6th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
I agree with choice (C). Search engines are very good and a useful aid, but do not replace searching actual journals, especially older citations.
September 4th, 2006 at 1:22 am
I think option C, formal seaching using library search strategies is the most comprehensive and efficient in the long run.
September 2nd, 2006 at 7:15 pm
I beleive that it is a combination of all. I am concerned that writers use only one way to search the literature and may miss something important, such as the “classic” study that started it all.
September 2nd, 2006 at 10:38 am
My journal is the International Journal of Production Economics
I agree with Peter Graham’s remarks (B)
August 31st, 2006 at 9:34 pm
B & C. Search engines lack specificity and can be very dispersive. In my experience the old scholarly approach still works best: from the latest publications reconstruct a tree of relevant references with the assistance of MEDLINE and other databases. The method is most parsimonious, and provides specific assistance in planning research or in conducting comprehensive reviews.
August 31st, 2006 at 4:27 pm
B definitely. Search engines are a virtual necessity in view of the exploding information sources and access with information technology. But like most technologies there is a downside, which B hints at. Not just complacency, but separating the wheat from the chaff in information becomes a real challenge.
August 31st, 2006 at 3:36 pm
B for sure. It’s already happening. Students and colleagues rely too much on Google. There’s still a lot of literature in libraries that’s not available on Google.
August 31st, 2006 at 11:24 am
My choice would be A, however, B needs attention; especially in an academic environment. Critical evaluation of search results should be taught to students, e.g. use of scopus options to screen lists of references.
August 31st, 2006 at 5:35 am
my assessment is B. While I believe that A could be acceptable to some extent, they might promote an effect of blindness. One has to be selective and verufy the quality of sources found. Still the library resources are essential.
August 31st, 2006 at 1:40 am
I would have to say B. Google is omni-present and hence it is one of the first places that persons would go to. While it may be good for general searching, for young academics and researchers, other digital resources which follow the traditional library based research provides greater depth and variety. Also google generally targets more current and popular work as many webpages are looking to get more hits - hence it is more commercial than non-profit (academic). But with the close accessability few choose to access digital resources in libraries which are more geared towards academic research.
August 30th, 2006 at 8:12 pm
Search engines are a great resource, because of the rapidity with which they provide results. But this is only a starting point for in depth research on a topic and should be followed with a productive trip to the library. I am less concerned with the misuse of search engine results by young scientists that by students. I fear they will have an effect similar to that which calculators had on students’ ability to perform accurate simple arithmetic.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:27 pm
To choose only one answer might be misleading. There are several steps, which might include all three answers for a given subject. The general ease of use of course starts at A and goes down to C. Concerns about manuscripts that never look before 1992 are important and field and subject dependent. What is the average age of those who are responding here? Do students do anything other than A? I believe that increased digitization of older issues is important for young researchers.
August 30th, 2006 at 11:55 am
The search engines are vey useful for finding duplicate submissions and publications and locating reviewers.
August 30th, 2006 at 10:06 am
A
August 30th, 2006 at 8:03 am
Mainly B but some of A and C as well. Google and Scopus are very helpful and have revolutionised the way I work as an Editor. As a researcher however I find that there is no substitute for in-depth study of related work. In this regard the availability of Journal articles on line (for example through the relevant society membership) including older articles that would not be available to most search engines makes it much easier to check on half-remembered details from long lost hard copies and to find stuff related to new areas of research.
August 30th, 2006 at 2:34 am
Transportation Research Part F
A, B and C are equally true.
I spent many as assistant writing cards to ask authors to send me a hard copy of their article. Time-consuming, unreliable and costly, that was. Search engines are a blessing but do breed complacency (what is not found cannot exist) and lack of discrimination (what is found is true) amongst users, especially our students, who look no further than their search engine can see and cannot discern between an article found in the local newspaper archive and a manuscript found in a “learned journal”. And yes, the library resources are much more comprehensive. If you are trying to find that one dissertation on Dutch transportation written in the Frisian language and defended in 1687, forget about search engines and try the Royal Library archives. But then, if you are not a historian, how often do you need a 17th century dissertation? And the proper use of search engines and other library services is now an essential part of the curriculum for first-year students.
August 30th, 2006 at 12:07 am
If I had to chose, I’d choose C. I use a combination of google (google scholar) and library resources (mostly electronic, e.g. medline) and so far I have found what I need. Occasionally (but rarely) I still need to go to the library for old issues and volumes that are not yet available in electronic form.
August 29th, 2006 at 10:13 pm
Well, it depends on the search engine. If it is Web of Science or a good one focused on one discipline (PsycInfo for me), then the answer clearly is A…no problems. But if by search engine one means Google or anything like that (not really academically based), then I begin to worry…they are too “diffuse” and they produce more questionable material (non-refereed publications, etc.), to which students especially might give too much credence.
August 29th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
I feel like I need to use all the tools that are at my disposal.
I use google all the time. I also use our library citation index, pub med etc, but normally google is my first choice. Coming from a place with an excellent library makes it possible to get older articles rapidly. Today I downloaded two somewhat obscure papers (15 and 30 years old) from a pretty specialized journal (Nuclear Instruments and Methods) . A few years ago these two papers weren’t available on-line. Now they are. However, had they not been on-line I would’ve had the library scan them and e-mail them to me. I almost always lose all print copies of manuscripts anyway. The electronic ones allow me to carry my entire library everywhere I go.
August 29th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
B! I find more and more that the reference lists in papers dosn’t go back beyond what can find on the search engines, and this is especially true for students. Many times folks are reinventing the wheel, carrying out studies that have been done already, or attributing findings to authors of recent review articles rather than the originals. I believe it is leading to an overall lack of scholarship and depth of knowledge in all fields in which I work. Use of search engines is also depriving students of the joy of reading some of the older literatrre. Further, it is depriving authors who originally described a technique or scientific discovery of credit for those efforts — simply citing a review article from 2000 does not do the authors or the scientific community justice! There is still plenty of good reason for a trip the library stacks!
August 29th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
(A) since a lot of available data base exist and we need to identify what are the most useful information. The rapid search about the proper reference is critical from abundant data. Of course, this search is a beginning step and subsequent in-depth study should follow. Another thing is that search engine should be upgraded to include old literatures that were published as hard copies as much as possible.
August 29th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Field Crops Research
I agree with B). The temptation is to believe that nothing exists prior to the start date of a search engine, commonly early 1980’s, and if you have four papers that can be recovered on line, and one where you can only get the full paper by a visit to the library, to ignore that extra source of information.
I had a paper recently in which the earliest reference used was 1999, and which used the most modern techniques to establish something first shown in 1926. I reamed out the author but good. I believe that you can use a search engine for rapidly identifying good sources of information, but that this has to be followed up in some cases with hard-copy sources. Search engines that include both references cited in a particular paper, and subsequent citations of that work are of greatest value to me, and indispensible in lining up reviewers.
August 29th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Bill Manning - Environmental Pollution
I agree with both A and B. Search engines are fast and useful,
but in B young academics may restrict their searching to what’s
easily made available. Also, they tend not to look at what they
call “historical” literature, resulting in research is not quite original.
August 29th, 2006 at 3:47 pm
If I have to choose, it would be B).
Physics Letters B.
To find recent work, the WEb is fine and nearly everything can be found, with little effort. Only use library if I want to look something up in a book, which is described there in more detail and more rigorous.
August 29th, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Marine Micropaleontology. I agree with those who said that there is something in A, B, and C. I did not like the way in which the statement was phrased for A, ‘Search engines are the best tools available because they deliver rapid results’ -as if quality does not count. I personally like search engines (various types) not only because they are fast and I can access information wherever I am (including, these days, on research vessels), but also because they supply up-to-date information, even in fields which are only marginally my own, but of importance for evaluation of data. In my experience younger researchers commonly use ONLY search engines, thus possibly missing solid, but older information, as well as publications that are not yet on-line (yes, they still exist, and for a field which includes information obtained in far away places and published in rasther obscure Asian journals that is a problem). They also commonly do not quite have the quality-control issue sorted out. In addition, for those of use doing paleontology and taxonomy, the access to old (i.e., 1758-1950s) information remains of importance for some studies. Here it is encouraging that more and more material becomes available in on-line so that more and more databases make it possible to acces material that formerly was very difficult to obtain - when these are complete, I expect to use A more and more.
August 29th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
I vote A
I use Scopus, Scirus and Pub Med and consider these three sources the most useful and helpful. As for the comments, I concur with Steve Dunnett.
August 29th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Its a case of horses for courses. Each search engine has its peculiarities and it is up to the user to know what these are and take advantage of them
August 29th, 2006 at 2:27 pm
In my case, both A and C apply.
This may be a luxury position, but in our university results from Scopus are connected with the “digital library”. From the Scopus search results, the full text of the vast majority of papers is only a couple of clicks away.
We can use search engines rapidly and the full text, because this is still essential.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:50 pm
I vote A
I do not use google or Scius - direct access of the largest on line database Pub Med is the most useful and practical on a day to day basis, although the search interface could be better defined.
C is definitely the least useful - even at premier institutions the library houses only a fraction of the content needed, and time delays are significant.
The major constraint at present is the still remaining restrictions imposed by many publishers on open access by the whole scientific community.
I consider B rather smug - the availability of most of the recent literature now makes it feasible to attempt comprehensive review of the literature in any pertinent field of enquiry, challenging the former complacency of ignoring anything not carried by the library. The greatest restriction now on proper citing of preceding literature is the limited access to archives pre 1990s, and nothing pre 1960s, which applies equally to physical libraries and electronic archives.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
Jan Bergstra (Science of computer programming)
Search engines are very important and will become even more important. Libraries will need strategies to support in depth search after a firste survey has been developed using search engines.
I am not at all worried that in-depth search will disappear because selective reading has been taking place before.
So I would vote for A on the long run and suggest that libraries will have to work hard to keep C as true as it is at the moment. Avoiding the risks mentioned in B is a matter of time and of providing appropriate rewards for sound work.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
I would vote for A because rapid response are important.
August 29th, 2006 at 1:10 pm
Editor, Ore Geology Reviews
There’s no clear answer - ‘horses for courses’ is, I believe the suitable expression. Given the amount of information out there and the huge differences in the quality of that informaion, it is increasingly critical that students and young researchers are taught how to make the best of the different options, and how to evaluate their applicability to specific tasks.
August 29th, 2006 at 12:36 pm
International Journal of Coal Geology:
I am inclined to agree with A because search engines have opened up greater access to journal literature than was previously available, provided the researcher has the means to get to the paper being cited. Being at a research institute remote from the main campus of the university, I appreciate being able to do searches and download papers from my office. Still, if there is a tendency to overly rely on the search engines, the older literature can be overlooked.
August 29th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
I favor A. From past experience, I do not agree with B or with C. Although libraries are an extremely useful tool, I find a more comprehensive coverage of needed information using a number of complementary search engines.
August 29th, 2006 at 12:06 pm
C is still true, but students, as well as researchers, are more and more tending to A. “Rapid results ” are demanded by rapid research which gives a damn for the incorporation of earlier ideas and concepts. If this trend is not curtailed we will soon see science done in an entirely different style. The winner is the internet, and it´s irrefutable aspiration is to make out of science a message - just that.
August 29th, 2006 at 11:37 am
I would vote for A because rapid response are important and do not impair further in depth inquiries.
August 29th, 2006 at 11:04 am
I disagree with all three answers - they assume that there is only “one” correct approach. For many daily research related inquiries (eg., methods, resources, general info), Google is the best solution. For impact-related findings, Google Scholar has several advantages. However, for most comprehensive research questions (especially for manuscript or grant applications), I prefer Ovid or PubMed
August 29th, 2006 at 10:16 am
A), B), and C) are complementary and not alternatives. There is no substitute for judicious and sensible application of each.
August 29th, 2006 at 10:10 am
Marine Sciences including their history, member editorial team J Sea Research
I don’t like multiple choice questions.
I agree with A: it is rapid
with B as well: it is rapid but not sufficient particularly for older literature which in some fields is still very valuable.
So it is the combination which should give the best results. Therefore, keep libraries intact, learn younger students also how to use them and how to enjoy visiting libraries, to get an idea of the history for science, and to enjoy reading a real book.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:41 am
Search engines are the best tools available because they deliver rapid results. They can be very exhaustive if properly carried out and can/must (above all for Young Scientists)be integrated by textbooks and useful readings.
August 29th, 2006 at 8:22 am
Statement B is my opinion.
My journal name is “Immunoanalyse et Biologie Spécialisée” published in French and part in english.
Search engines permit to know all publications repertoried by the search engine but not the books and old litterature.
Young scientists have to know that all publications are not included in theses search engines, and actualy they don’t search anywhere else
August 29th, 2006 at 8:15 am
Statement A is to my opinion the best at the time. Rapid access to most of the new literature then has to be supplemented by studying textbooks and the older literature
August 29th, 2006 at 7:44 am
My Journal name is “sexologies”: European Journal of sexual health
I agree with the second proposition B for this reasons ; not only for young scientists but also for old papers. And search engines on the web should be combined with other reading , Google is a marvellous tool for a first approach but it necessits a good understanding to choice, and to delve into the subject dedicated databases are useful, But nothing is better than a good experience of the subject and the quality of the literature written on it.
August 29th, 2006 at 7:41 am
I opt for ‘B’. It should be seen however that, contrary to the rapid development in the last two decades, Internet and search engines are just in a premature stage. The major issue is semantics, and everything that is related to this (such as verification, abstraction, generalization, context, pragmatism). I am sure we will have completely different services and affordances in 20 years. And even then we will be dissatisfied …
Imre Horvath
Computer-Aided Design
August 29th, 2006 at 7:39 am
Aquatic Toxicology:
I would go for A, but after one has searched for relevant articles using search machines, one actually needs to read the articles. And this is, unfortunately, surprisingly often forgotten.
August 29th, 2006 at 7:26 am
All the options are appropriate in given circumstances. Using a combination of ScienceDirect, Scopus, MedLine etc, together with available journals and books not accessible via these search methods, offers a comprehensive range of data. Scopus in particular has opened up areas for further research because of its wide, succinct and rapidly available means of gathering information.
August 29th, 2006 at 7:15 am
I pretty much agree with the summary of W Schnotz. While I prefer approach B specifically with Google Scholar to get an idea, often Google search is biased and incomplete. Therefore, we carry out formal literature surveys using dedicated databases (IEEE and Elsevier for the most part).
August 24th, 2006 at 9:11 am
I absolutely say : “B”. In particular for young scientists, but not only, it is vital to know old papers published on the topics dealed with, for doing good science. Thus, lit search performed through search engines on the web should be combined with long hours spent in the library with hard paper in the hands. It is difficult but essential.
Paolo Cherubini
Dendrochronologia
August 16th, 2006 at 8:21 pm
I would vote for A. Having a rapid response (as long as the quality is acceptable) can make up for a host of other deficiencies.
July 20th, 2006 at 11:51 am
I still tend towards C for serious scientific literatur recheres, but if I need quick (although “dirty”) information about anything, I also go for B and for A.
It simply depends on my goal and on the circumstances, which instrument fits best. If you have no access to bibliographic data bases for the moment and you know exactly what reference you are looking for, A is perfect. However, I would not start working into a new field primarily by googling.
July 20th, 2006 at 6:09 am
I do not think we can answer this as eiother A, B or C, but if pushed I would choose B. The reason the question cannot be answered is that some people use these search engines sensibly, others do not. To make use of them sensibly means they are used to assist in some form of investigative work, but they must not be seen as the directing influence. Once that “authority-charged” perception is in the mind, it is hard to remove, and further use of engine to solve problems for you simply makes this mind-set more deeply ingrained. Addiction follows. Remember what Mark Twain said - “Reading rots the mind” — to have innovative thoughts you must not allow that which is presented on a plate in front of you to detract from the deeper thoughts that began before this other offering prsented itself. In science we have a special problem here. Back to another quote, that of Francis Bacon on the art of education - “to enthuse briefly, not inform tediously”
July 11th, 2006 at 8:34 am
I prefer B). Search engines perform a very important function for the active professional; my journal is for orthopaedic nurses who do not have time or the ability to carry our systematic reviews but may need to access evidence from which to make clinical decisions. Search engines are therefore useful but few of my colleagues are complacent and appreciate the status of the tool.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:13 pm
Search engines are a very useful place to start a literature search because the are up to date and the published articles provide literature citations that relate to previous research in the area often as far back as is required to obtain the full background.
July 7th, 2006 at 5:09 pm
Search engines are very useful to find out recent, up to date trends, yet fail providing the basic, often older than 20 years, information. Answers B and C are relevant.
Search engines are most useful in finding who and/or which research groups is/are presently active on a specific topic.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:56 am
I prefer option B.
Search engines are very powerful tools and they greatly enhanced the access to research findings, also for example for researchers with limited access to (good) libraries or services like Scopus. However, search results provide only one point of access to relevant literature and triangulation through other (more convential) searches is required.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:50 am
I incline to the opinion A