Information Challenge : Google Vs. Academic Databases

Until about a decade back, the academic databases dominated and ruled the information retrieval arena. Upon the advent of the World Wide Web, search engines such as Google have taken over a major chunk of the monopoly represented by the academic databases. However, are the two, really a competition to each other, or are they complimentary? For the benefit of the searchers and the information field;is there a likely point of convergence?

The proponents of the academic databases who are against Google claim that information googled out is similar to junk food and leads to ‘information obesity’. While it may be true that vanity often drives the internet, this argument has been refuted by researchers who have quantitatively demonstrated that Google has a precision which is slightly better than the academic databases and the accessibility is far more superior to the latter(1). The only area where Google seems to suffer is quality of the intellectual content.Only a fraction of all journals exist on web owing to extensive costs of copyrights in an attempt to digitize them.

The greatest strength of the research is that, there is an acceptance of the fact that Google has indeed come so far enough, as to face all the academic databases alone. Documents retrieved form Google have a better relevance of the topic and with the advent of Google Scholar , access to scholarly articles is much more easier as compared to the academic databases.

An attempt needs to be made to understand the psyche of the user, as to why he or she prefers Google to the academic databases, that is if they had any preference. It is perhaps, the user friendly interface of Google that draws users, even though, when they are aware, that higher quality information may be available through the academic databases.

Instead of viewing Google as a threat, an amicable approach can be taken, and a point of convergence can be reached. Some of the Information Stalwarts such as ProQuest, OCLC, and Reed Business Information now have some of their information indexed by Google, although access to full texts still typically requires a license. Nearly 100 percent of the Institute of Physics (IoP) content is indexed by Google as well as 90 percent of Emerald Insight publications. The American Institute of Physics (AIP) took a different route and built a new web site that is web crawler friendly .(2)

Thus convergence has already started taking place. Many prominent databases like Dialog now offer a web version.

There is an invisible web that exists other than the visible world wide web .Further research should be taken up, as to how the information from the invisible web can be ‘googled out’. In other words, to find a solution to make the contents of the invisible web, more accessible, in a user amiable manner.
Another dimension can be added to the research, if the social context of the user is known. Social context can be gathered from the user himself, by allowing personalizing, the academic databases. This personalization, usually draws users to a platform which they feel ‘knows’ them.

Despite academic databases having their own shortcomings, Google is not enough, at least not as of now. The two systems should learn more from each other, and together emerge as an information retrieval system, which is not only of high quality, but also easily accessible and has an ergonomic interface.

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1. Brophy, J. & Bawden, D. (2005). Is Google enough? Comparison of an internet
search engine with academic library resources. Aslib Proceedings: New Information Perspectives, 57(6), 498-512


2. Tenopir, C. (2004).Is Google the competition. Library Journal.129 (6).30-30