Meeting November 15, 2007

Members present: Paula, Keith, Sara, Susann

Idea to look at Metalib vs. Google Scholar

How does GS compare with Metalib for doing interdisciplinary research on various topics? Is it necessary to have Metalib if GS does an adequate job of finding relevent resources ?

Craft custom sets and run searches against GS
These will include sample searches in: Business, Social Work, Education, Biology, Health Sciences, and History

How do you measure a search?
# of first results
Compare the quality of what you get--is there any overlap?
Relevence--GS has citations
Rank the results

What we want to know...

Criteria: Dates, types of document, Journal titles, relevence, ownership

Metalib-
What databases got the results fastest?
What is going on behind the scenes?
Algorithm

Look at the top 10 or 15 results from each of the two sources
Get subject faculty to look at the results and rank relevence
Put them in a list and have them blindly review the results to see if they can tell where they came from (GS or Metalib)

Jobs:
Keith--look at databases in Metalib
Sara--How Google and Metalib work behind the scenes.
Elizabeth--literature search to find if anyone else has done this or a similar study
Susann--Find possible places to present results or journals to submit to.
All--start thinking of search terms: two for each subject.

Timeframe: completion by next Fall.