UCSC Librarians in Print

UCSC’s Christy Hightower, Science and Engineering Collections Coordinator, and Christy Caldwell, Science and Engineering Librarian, recently published an article in the Fall 2010 issue of Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship (ISTL).

Their article, Shifting Sands: Science Researchers on Google Scholar, Web of Science, and PubMed, with Implications for Library Collections Budgets, discusses the results of a survey of UCSC’s science researchers, delves deeply into when and why some researchers prefer Google Scholar over Web of Science, and considers the importance of continuing to pay for articles versus the importance of keeping the tools used to find the articles (such as article databases).

The article is already generating some buzz… “probably the best I ever read (and I have read some!) about Google Scholar compared to paid services…”; see http://scienceintelligence.wordpress.com/2010/12/07/google-scholar-vs-web-of-science-macdonalds-vs-a-gourmet-restaurant/ for more.  No doubt, the article’s conclusions will be of interest to all currently dealing with dwindling library collections budgets.