Archive for the ‘Search News’ Category

Find Similar Images with GazoPa (Beta)

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

Here’s a beta image search engine named GazoPa.

It allows the user to upload an image, enter an image URL, draw a picture (cool!), or keyword search a database of the GazoPa database and then find SIMILAR images based on the image that was upload or keyword search. You can also combine an image (what they call a “key image”) with keyword(s). A Firefox addon, a bookmarklet, and an iPhone app are also available. GazoPa is not exactly new (their blog goes back to September, 2008) but it’s new to us. So, why not share. Their colorful logo might remind some of other search engines with colorful logos. (-:

The home page also claims the database is large, more that 60 million images. We need to confirm this but the way we read the final page of the FAQ is that the 60 million images were crawled by GazoPa. They also have a page for webmasters about their crawler, GazoPabot. In other words, they’re not buying their image collection by stringing together other image databases they’ve been given access to for free or a fee.

Results pages offer four types of results:

+ Images
+ Videos (it appears that most of the results come from YouTube)
+ News Images (it appears to be a GazoPa crawl)
+ Flickr (Is the Flickr database included in the 60 million images total?)

Worth mentioning, GozaPa is a venture project of the Hitachi Corporation (note the copyright info at the bottom of the home page).

So, go forward and demo. We’ll do the same and report back in a week or so.

See Also: GazoPa Blog

See Also: GazoPa Twitter Feed

See Also: A little over a week ago we posted about a reverse image search named Tin Eye. tool has users upload an image and then the Tin Eye technology goes out on the web to see if others are using your content.

Australia: Historic Newspaper Digitisation: Early Editions of Sydney Morning Herald Now Available Online; What is Trove?

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

From an e-Mail:

The National Library’s Australian Newspapers service has recently made available https://mail.google.com/mail/?zx=1rjv366gqucji&shva=1#inbox/1250a7f37fa96144early editions of The Sydney Morning Herald.

The digitisation of The Sydney Morning Herald was made possible by a $1 million contribution from the Vincent Fairfax Family Foundation. Eventually, all out-of-copyright editions of the Herald will be available, from its inception in 1831 to 1954.

It is now just over a year since Australian Newspapers was released to the public and there are 8.5 million articles available from 33 newspaper titles. A community of volunteer ‘text correctors’ has now corrected 7 million lines of the electronically translated text in 318 000 articles, enabling more accurate search results.

Access the Collection (via Trove)

Btw, what is Trove?

“one search…a wealth of information”

Trove is our new free online service that gathers information about Australia and Australians in a single search.

Discover:
+ Digitised Australian newspapers, 1803 – 1954
+ Books, magazines and articles
+ Pictures and photographs
+ Music, oral histories and videos
+ Maps
+ Archived websites
+ Biographical information

Source: National Library of Australia

Consumer Electronics: Five Technology Trends to Watch – 2010

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

5 Technology Trends to Watch – 2010 (PDF; 2.1 MB)

Welcome to the latest edition of Five Technology Trends to Watch. This annual Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) publication looks at the new technologies that will shape our future. I remain optimistic despite the challenges to the economy. The consumer technology industry continues to show promise with sales expected to reach $172 billion for 2009.

This year we look at the evolution of content, connected devices in the home, TV beyond HD, connected cars and the smart grid. The publication also takes a peek at the future of CE. For example, IBM is working to develop artificial DNA nanostructures as a framework to build the tiny microchips used in electronics devices. Although still many years out, this work could one day impact how we build, operate and interact with electronics. Learn also about advances in a holographic storage material capable of storing 500GB of data on a DVD-sized optical disc – ten times the amount that can be stored on a dual-layer Blu-ray disc. It’s not here yet but discs of this size could one day store 3D video.

Source: Consumer Electronics Association

Hat tip: AT

Gartner: Top 10 Consumer Mobile Applications for 2012

Thursday, November 19th, 2009

From the Announcement:

Gartner, Inc. has identified the top 10 consumer mobile applications for 2012. Gartner listed applications based on their impact on consumers and industry players, considering revenue, loyalty, business model, consumer value and estimated market penetration.

The announcement has the complete list with commentary.

Here’s the Top Five:

No. 1: Money Transfer

This service allows people to send money to others using Short Message Service (SMS). Its lower costs, faster speed and convenience compared with traditional transfer services have strong appeal to users in developing markets, and most services signed up several million users within their first year.

No. 2: Location-Based Services
Location-based services (LBS) form part of context-aware services, a service that Gartner expects will be one of the most disruptive in the next few years.

No. 3: Mobile Search
The ultimate purpose of mobile search is to drive sales and marketing opportunities on the mobile phone. To achieve this, the industry first needs to improve the user experience of mobile search so that people will come back again. Mobile search is ranked No. 3 because of its high impact on technology innovation and industry revenue. Consumers will stay loyal to some search services, but instead of sticking to one or two search providers on the Internet, Gartner expects loyalty on the mobile phone to be shared between a few search providers that have unique technologies for mobile search.

No. 4: Mobile Browsing

Mobile browsing is a widely available technology present on more than 60 percent of handsets shipped in 2009, a percentage Gartner expects to rise to approximately 80 percent in 2013. Gartner has ranked mobile browsing No. 4 because of its broad appeal to all businesses.

No. 5: Mobile Health Monitoring

Mobile health monitoring is the use of IT and mobile telecommunications to monitor patients remotely, and could help governments, care delivery organizations (CDOs) and healthcare payers reduce costs related to chronic diseases and improve the quality of life of their patients.

Source: Gartner
Hat Tip: RWW (more…)

Nobel Prize-winning scientists urge Congress to act to ensure free online access to federally funded research results

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Nobel Prize-winning scientists urge Congress to act to ensure free online access to federally funded research results

“For America to obtain an optimal return on our investment in science, publicly funded research must be shared as broadly as possible,” is the message that forty one Nobel Prize-winning scientists in medicine, physics, and chemistry gave to Congress in an open letter delivered yesterday. The letter marks the fourth time in five years that leading scientists have called on Congress to ensure free, timely access to the results of federally funded research – this time asking leaders to support the Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009 (S.1373).

The bi-partisan Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA), introduced by Senators Lieberman (I-CT) and Cornyn (R-TX), would deliver online public access to the published results of research funded through eleven U.S. agencies and departments, requiring that peer-reviewed journal articles stemming from publicly funded research be made available in an online repository no later than six months after publication.

+ An Open Letter to the U.S. Congress Signed by 41 Nobel Prize Winners (November 2009)

Source: Alliance for Taxpayer Access

National Archives Joins Interagency Group for Online Reservations

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

National Archives Joins Interagency Group for Online Reservations

The National Archives has joined the National Recreation Reservation Service (NRRS), a Federal interagency reservation service, provided under contract by the U.S. Forest Service. Participating in the NRRS online reservation service, www.Recreation.gov, will make it easier for individuals, families, and large groups alike to visit the National Archives. By simply going online, visitors can now reserve their choice of dates and times in a matter of minutes. While reservations are not required to visit the National Archives, this new service will offer another option for those who wish to plan ahead and beat the crowds.

Source: NARA

Google Makes Stanford Dissertations Searchable

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

What does this mean for ProQuest in the long term?

From the Article:

Stanford doctoral students will now be able to post their dissertations on Google as the university replaces the traditional bound volumes of acid-free paper with e-files of scholarly work.

[Snip]

The key to the effort is the university’s partnership with Google, which will allow anyone with a computer to access the work of Stanford doctoral students.

“We have way north of 35,000 bound dissertations on our shelves,” said university Librarian Michael Keller, who has been pushing for the digital dissertations. “Many of them just stay on the shelf, forgotten and invisible, or scholars have to pay enormous sums to come to Stanford to read them.”

[Snip]

While other universities already allow electronic submissions, “we’re the only one we know of that’s going the whole route, with approval online and then sending it down the electronic pipe,” Keller said.

[Snip]

But using the company costs money, which meant that students would end up paying as much as $221 in fees when they filed their dissertations with the registrar’s office. Stanford’s electronic filing system will be free, although students still can pay to have their dissertations listed on ProQuest, an online subscription service for dissertations and other academic publications.

[Snip]

Science students are used to having their papers published quickly as journal articles,” he said. “But the ‘tenure book’ is very important in the humanities, and students were worried that making their work instantly accessible might affect publishers’ decisions later on.”

The problem was solved by allowing the graduate students to embargo their work for up to five years, to give them time to get it published. They also will be allowed to decide whether to release either 20 or 100 percent of their dissertation to Google.

Source: SF Chronicle

Hat Tip: Library Stuff

Dr. Paul LeClerc to Retire as President of The New York Public Library

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

From the Announcement:

Dr. Paul LeClerc, the French literature scholar who has guided The New York Public Library into the digital age—one of the most dramatic transitions in its history—has announced that he will retire from his position as President in the summer of 2011.

At a meeting of its Board of Trustees today, Dr. LeClerc said he is “both astonished and pleased at how much our library system has changed” in his 16 years at the helm.

[Snip]

A committee headed by Mrs. Marron and Vice Chairman Joshua L. Steiner will begin the search for a new Library President.“With today’s announcement Paul has provided us with the opportunity to ensure a smooth transition in leadership, giving us ample time to conduct a thorough search to fill this unique leadership position,” said Mrs. Marron.

Dr. LeClerc came to The New York Public Library in 1993 from Hunter College where he had been President since 1988.He spearheaded the creation of a digital library, launching the first NYPL.org website—and continues to oversee the digitization of the Library’s catalog; its 700,000 image Digital Gallery; and the vastly growing field of downloadable e-books, videos, and music.The Library, which recently created an integrated catalog of research and circulating materials representing 14 million items, has also entered into new partnerships with Google, Flickr, Apple (iTunes U), Kirtas Technologies, and numerous others that provide expanded access to the Library’s resources.All of the Library’s branches now provide free wireless access to the Internet, and the Library offers 3,600 free public-access computers, with training for those new to computers.

Much More About Dr. LeClerc in this Announcement

Source: New York Public Library
Hat Tip: Library Stuff

New Features and a New Look for Google Translate

Wednesday, November 18th, 2009

Access Google Translate

From the Blog Post:

+ Google Translate offers 51 languages, representing over 98% of Internet users today.

+ Can Translate 2550 Language Pairs

+ New Layout

+ Google Translate now translates your text right as you type. (Cool!)

Want to say “Today is a good day” in Chinese, but can’t read Han characters? Click “Show romanization” to read the text written phonetically in English. Right now, this works for all non-Roman languages except for Hebrew, Arabic and Persian.

+ New input transliteration feature for Arabic, Persian or Hindi.

+ Text -to-Speech: When translating into English, you can now also hear translations in spoken form by clicking the Speaker Icon. (Something that those in the ESL world might find useful.

+ Here’s an Overview Video

Access Google Translate

Source: Google Blog
Hat Tip: Library Stuff

Three Quarters of Adults are Reading Newspapers, in Print or Online

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Three Quarters of Adults are Reading Newspapers, in Print or Online (PDF; 144 KB)

Three-quarters (74%) of U.S. adults, or nearly 171 million people, read a newspaper — in print or online — during the past week. This is according to the latest Integrated Newspaper Audience (INA)* finding from Scarborough Research, the audience ratings measurement service for the newspaper industry. The company examined newspaper readership in its recently released Scarborough USA+ Study, which captures media patterns and other consumer behaviors of adults across the country. The data analysis indicates that newspapers are still read in print or online by a critical mass of adults in the U.S. on a daily and weekly basis.

The analysis of Scarborough audience data not only indicated that newspapers are being read by a majority of adults in print and online, but also that these Integrated Newspaper Audiences continue to attract educated, affluent readers. In an average week:

  • 79% of adults employed in white collar positions read a newspaper in print or online
  • 82% of adults with household incomes of $100,000 or more read a printed newspaper in print or online
  • 84% of adults who are college graduates or who have advanced degrees read a printed newspaper in print or online

Source: Scarborough Research (via Nielsen)

See also: News for Sale: Charges for Online News Are Set to Become the Norm as Most Consumers Say They Are Willing to Pay, According to The Boston Consulting Group

Online Maps: Everyman Offers New Directions

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Online Maps: Everyman Offers New Directions

They don’t know it, but people who use Google’s online maps may be getting directions from Richard Hintz.

Mr. Hintz, a 62-year-old engineer who lives in Berkeley, Calif., has tweaked the locations of more than 200 business listings and points of interest in cities across the state, sliding an on-screen place marker down the block here, moving another one across the street there. Farther afield, he has mapped parts of Cambodia and Laos, where he likes to go on motorcycle trips.

Mr. Hintz said these acts of geo-volunteerism were motivated in part by self-interest: he wants to know where he’s going. But “it has this added attraction that it helps others,” he said.

Mr. Hintz is a foot soldier in an army of volunteer cartographers who are logging every detail of neighborhoods near and far into online atlases. From Petaluma to Peshawar, these amateurs are arming themselves with GPS devices and easy-to-use software to create digital maps where none were available before, or fixing mistakes and adding information to existing ones.

Source: New York Times

Just Released: Shakespeare Quartos Archive Opens Access to Hamlet

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

We are looking forward to spending some quality time with this very high quality resources (that’s also free). If nothing else, it really shows off the power of digital archives and digitization.

From the Announcement:

The highly-anticipated Shakespeare Quartos Archive has been officially launched today with a complete digital collection of rare early editions of Hamlet.

For the first time, all 32 existing quarto copies of the play held by participating UK and US institutions are freely available online in one place. This initiative is jointly led by the Bodleian Library, University of Oxford and the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC, through a joint transatlantic grant from Jisc in the UK and the National Endowment for the Humanities in the US.

[Snip]

Now scholars can explore these different quarto versions side by side for the first time. It features high-quality reproductions and searchable full text of surviving copies of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in quarto in an interactive interface. The project, which began in April 2008, reunites all 75 pre-1642 quarto editions of Shakespeare’s plays into a single online collection. The prototype interface is at present fully functional only for Hamlet, but the Shakespeare Quartos Archive plans to apply this technology to all the plays in quarto, and to seek involvement from new partner institutions.

Now scholars can explore these different quarto versions side by side for the first time on the project website. It features high-quality reproductions and searchable full text of surviving copies of Shakespeare’s Hamlet in quarto in an interactive interface. Functions and tools – such as the ability to overlay images, compare them side-by-side, and mark and tag features with user annotations – facilitate scholarly research, performance studies, and new applications for learning and teaching.

The project, which began in April 2008, reunites all 75 pre-1642 quarto editions of Shakespeare’s plays into a single online collection. The prototype interface is at present fully functional only for Hamlet, but the Shakespeare Quartos Archive plans to apply this technology to all the plays in quarto, and to seek involvement from new partner institutions.

Direct to Shakespeare Quartos Archive

Source: JISC, NEH

New from Google: Search and Access Clusters of Related Images

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Chris Sherman writes:

The newest addition to Google Labs is a mashup of Google Images, Google Similar Images and the visual query refinement tool, The Google Wonder Wheel. Called Google Image Swirl, the new tool clusters similar images based on characteristics found in both the text surrounding images, as well as using some of the visual analysis techniques…

[Snip]

Image Swirl currently works for about 200,000 of the most popular queries. You can tell which queries have Image Swirl results when you start typing in the search box, as available searches will auto-complete, similar to Google Suggest.

Much More Including Examples in the Complete Article

Access Google Image Swirl

Source: Search Engine Land

See Also: On a Somewhat Related Note (Search Engines and Images) Check Out Bing’s Visual Search Tool (Beta)
We weren’t fans at first but this site and what it can do are now making more sense to us. Worth a look for sure.

New: The Survey of Higher Education Faculty: Level of Faculty Satisfaction with the Academic Library

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Yesterday, we posted highlights from a new report (available for $92/U.S. from Primary Research) titled, “The Survey of Higher Education Faculty: Use of Digital Repositories and Views on Open Access.”

Today, news of another study from Primary Research with free highlights.

“The Survey of Higher Education Faculty: Level of Faculty Satisfaction with the Academic Library” is a 100 page report and costs $89.50/U.S.

Here are a Few Highlights:

The report presents the results of a survey of more than 550 higher education faculty in the United States and Canada. Faculty present their opinions on what academic libraries should be spending more money on; they render judgments on journals, books, e-books, workstations and other info technologies, library facilities and even additional librarians.

The report details the level of faculty satisfaction with library creature comforts, information literacy efforts, hours of access, research support for faculty, collection adequacy and other areas. Data is presented in the aggregate and for 12 criteria including academic field, size of college, type of college, academic title and other factors.

+ 28.44% of faculty said that they were highly satisfied with their academic library’s level of physical comfort.

+ Satisfaction was high on the issue of the library staff’s capacity to deliver help when needed. More than 47% said that they were highly satisfied and 38.53% said that they were satisfied with their library’s capacity to deliver help when needed.

+ Only 14.33% of the faculty in the sample said that they were highly satisfied with the adequacy of their college library’s materials collection for their own personal scholarly pursuits.

+ More than 44% of US-based faculty but only 30.77% of Canadian faculty were highly satisfied with their academic library’s inter-library loan services.

+ 27.44% of faculty in the sample felt that their library should increase spending on traditional print books.

Source Primary Research

Ready Reference: A Chart to Track Proposed Amendments to Patriot Act

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

From the Wired Story:

Confused by all the proposed changes to the Patriot Act ricocheting through the Capitol? The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) has put together a handy chart comparing the current law with the various amendments in the House and Senate.

The chart compares proposed amendments (.pdf) to National Security Letters (NSLs) and the so-called “lone wolf” provisions of the Patriot Act. The proposals have only been passed by the judiciary committees, and face further amendments before they hit the full House and Senate for votes.

+ Direct to the Amendments Chart (7 pages; PDF)

+ Access the Complete Wired Story
Much more on the proposed amendments.

Source: Threat Level (Wired)

Source: Wired

The Internet Time Machine from the Momento Project

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

This is a must read from start to finish. Here are a few snippets to wet you whistle.

Access the Complete Article from New Scientist

Bookmarking a page takes you to its current version – but earlier ones are harder to find (to see an award-winning 1990s incarnation of newscientist.com, see our gallery of web pages past, right). One option is to visit a resource like the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. There, you key in the URL of the site you want and are confronted with a matrix of years and dates for old pages that have been cached.

It’s a lot of hassle. But it shoudn’t be, says Herbert Van de Sompel, a computer scientist at Los Alamos. “Today we treat the web like a library in which you have to know how to go and search for things. We’ve a better way.”

That “better way” is a system that gives browsers a “time-travel” mode, allowing users to find web pages from particular dates and times without having to navigate through archives.

[Snip]

“In addition to language and media type, we negotiate in time. So Memento asks the server not for today’s version of this page, but how it looked one year ago, for instance,” says Van de Sompel.

[Snip]

Jakob Voss, a developer with the Common Library Network in Göttingen, Germany, is an early Memento user – and he is already advocating use of Memento for sites with frequently updated pages like Wikipedia.

“Memento is only a proof of concept but it looks very promising and could be a great enhancement to the web. There is little support in today’s browsers for digging into archives, especially those with dynamic content management systems like wikis and weblogs,” Voss says.

You Can Try a Demo Here and Learn More Here

Access the Complete Article from New Scientist

Source: New Scientist

Old-Book Smell, Sniffing, and Preservation

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

An interesting out of the way question and the NY Times goes on a hunt to find out in this story.

From the Article:

If you have torn yourself away from the virtual library that is the Internet long enough to visit a real library, you know that the smell of old books — musty, slightly acidic, even grassy — is instantly recognizable. But is it quantifiable? And if so, might old-book odor prove useful to librarians and conservators charged with preserving collections?

[Snip]

Dr. Strlic said he got the idea one day at a library when he saw a conservator sniffing an old piece of paper, trying to determine what it was made of. “I thought, certainly a technique could be developed to do that more accurately,” he said. The approach is similar to breath analysis used to diagnose illness, he added.

He and his colleagues analyzed the volatiles produced by 72 samples of old paper of different types and in varying condition from the 19th and 20th centuries, using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. They found that some compounds were reliable markers for paper with certain characteristics — high concentrations of lignin or rosin, for example, which make paper degrade relatively quickly. Their findings were published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.

Source: NY Times

The November/December 2009 Issue of D-Lib Magazine is Now Available

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Before we post a selection of what in the new issue of D-LIB, ResourceShelf would like to thank Bonita Wilson for editing a great publication. She has been the sole editor of D-LIB since July, 2001. This is her last issue as editor. She’ll now have more time to engage in the “other things” she likes doing at her home on the Chesapeake Bay in VA. She’ll continue with CNRI in a part time capacity.

Here are Some of the Articles in the November/December 2009 Issue of D-LIB:

+ Beyond 1923: Characteristics of Potentially In-copyright Print Books in Library Collections
by Brian Lavoie and Lorcan Dempsey, OCLC Online Computer Library Center

+ Service-Oriented Models for Educational Resource Federations
by Daniel R. Rehak, LSAL; and Nick Nicholas and Nigel Ward, Link Affiliates, Australia

+ From TIFF to JPEG 2000? Preservation Planning at the Bavarian State Library Using a Collection of Digitized 16th Century Printings
by Hannes Kulovits and Andreas Rauber, Vienna University of Technology; and Anna Kugler, Markus Brantl, Tobias Beinert, Astrid Schoger, Bavarian State Library

+ Measuring Citation Advantages of Open Accessibility
by Samson C. Soong, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

+ The Importance of Digital Libraries in Joint Educational Programmes: A Case Study of a Master of Science Programme Involving Organizations in Ghana and the Netherlands
by Marga Koelen, International Institute for Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation; and Jonathan Arthur Quaye-Ballard, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology

The Practice and Perception of Web Archiving in Academic Libraries and Archives
by Lisa Gregory, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Google Websites as an Easy Publication Route
by Anna Faktorovich, Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Access the Complete November/December 2009 Issue of D-LIB:

An Interactive Information Literacy Tutorial

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

Note: If information literacy is an area that you keep a close watch on this blog is one you should be monitoring (if you aren’t already). You’ll see what I mean with the resource listed below. Sheila Webber the weblogs founder/editor/compiler, is a faculty member in the Department of Information Studies, University of Sheffield, UK.

Sheila Webber Writes on the Information Literacy Weblog:

Thanks to Sophie Bury for highlighting this online tutorial for postgraduate research students and staff which has “Ruth” as your guide (a professional actress, and less irritating than many such guides). It was funded by the Irish Higher Education Authority, with NUI Galway, Trinity College Dublin and University College Cork partnering to produce it.

Direct to Tutorial

Thanks for sharing Sheila!

Source: Information Literacy Weblog

Legal Info Now Part of Google Scholar Database; Federal and State Legal Opinions and Patents, Law Journals Also Part of the Mix

Tuesday, November 17th, 2009

UPDATE: Here’s the Official Blog Post from Google

Here’s what ResoureShelf has to say.
———-

Yes, something new at Google Scholar (GS) to share. Its been a long time (see below for more on our last GS posting) since we posted about something new from GS.

Let’s do this one step at a time.

When you visit the Google Scholar Home Page you’ll see three radio buttons/boxes directly below the search box.

The one on the left limits you search to only articles, directly next to it you can toggle on or off access to patents. So, we now know patent content is now part of the Google Scholar database. Of course, you could argue how “scholarly” patent material is (but we can save that discussion for another day). It’s likely people want them included in with Google Scholar results so Google is listening. That said, it does seem a bit odd since Google has a separate patent search interface. But, it’s important to put the content where people want it. Also, they’ve grouped patents with articles (e.g. scholarly articles, what you would expect from GS) and not with legal opinions and journals. I would have guessed they would have grouped all of the legal materials in one group.

Of course, if you don’t want patent content in your results, it’s very easy, just don’t select the button.

At the top of a search results page you’ll now see three drop down boxes. What do they offer?

++ An Option to Refine Your Results to:
+ Articles and Patents
+ Articles Excluding Patents
+ Legal Opinions and Journals
+ Only Federal Cases
+ Only California Cases

++ Drop Down Two
+ Limit by Date; From 1990-the Present (On the advance search page, you can select any date range)

++ Drop Down Three
+ Include Citations
+ At least summaries

Now, to the legal search options. It looks as if Google is a new source for material from the U.S. District Courts, the U.S. Court of Appeals, U.S. Supreme Court and courts from all fifty states. You’ll find published opinions. What we’re going to try and find out is if the legal journals are new to Google Scholar or they now have a new way to limit to them. Here’s a legal document/journal search for the phrase “Sony Music.”

UPDATE: There is no way to search content from all 50 states (and DC) at one time without checking each “state” box on the advanced search page.

UPDATE: As of 11/17 most of the state material comes primarily from a state’s Supreme Court (or High Court) and goes back to somewhere in the 1950 range. In other words, we had trouble finding material from state trial and appellate courts.

Result #1 is, “Snyder v. Sony Music.” Click the title and read the opinion. Another feature either from the results page or via a tab above the court opinion allows you to see how the case has been cited.

Thee sections are on the page:

+ How this document has been cited
You’ll see an quote next to where the actual site was found. When you click, you’ll see the text highlighted directly next to the site.
+ Cited by
+ and Related documents (No word on what makes a document related or who/what makes the call. We’re betting it’s an algorithm.

In terms of legal journals, they’re mixed in with the rest of the material. Check out result #1 on this results page. Click to read the article from the Journal of High Technology Law and you have to login to your LexisNexis account or pay $12.50. Here’s another article and this time you need to have a HeinOnline subscription. The actual result lists two versions and they both are from HeinOnline. We browsed about 100 entries from five searches and only found one free article, in this case from a government organization. if free articles are in the database, it will take more test searches to find them. One thing that we did notice is that their is a lot of content from journals published by Sage.

Of course, the Google Scholar Advanced Search Interface Has Been Updated
1) The search by collection area has been expanded to include the patent option.
2) You can limit your search for opinions to one or more of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.
3) You can search by date range (no limits)
4) To access state cases you have to use the advanced interface (except California, which has a drop down refinement on results pages)

Much More After a Click
(more…)