http://mndoci.disqus.com/At the interface of science and computingenThu, 03 Jan 2008 16:23:30 -0000http://mndoci.com/2007/12/22/google-scholar-is-down/#comment-1308440<p>The problem with Google Scholar, as I told them when it came out, is that it needs to know how to handle names in the form Firstname M. Lastname, F.M. Lastname, and Lastname, F.M.</p><p>A search for Lastname, F. should return results for Frank Lastname and Frederick Lastname and everybody else with an F starting their first name. Likewise, a search for Firstname Lastname should return results for F. Lastname.</p><p>Currently, it can't do this because it doesn't have a operator for firstname or lastname or initials, only for name. This makes it all but useless for academic purposes, where authorship is a major search criteria. The only time I actually use it is when I'm using a index, like ISI "Walled Garden" of Knowledge which doesn't have links to pubmed, display DOIs, or give any other links to non-ISI content. The shortest path to the pubmed entry is sometimes to select the article title and do a right-click google search.</p><p>/happy new year<br>//hope you had a good holiday season</p>mr. gunnThu, 03 Jan 2008 16:23:30 -0000