It pains me to say...

A few weeks back I discussed Google Scholar. In fact, within the blog I cited a research article that proved Scholar being better than some library resources. I must admit that since that blog, I have become somewhat of a Google Scholar junkie!! If I am trying to locate an article, as of late, I try Google Scholar first. Generally, if the article I'm looking for is available through Wayne State University, it's the first result listed. I have become so accustomed to going to Google Scholar in search of articles that I've begun recommending it to other WSU students.

Last Friday, a student was in need of some articles that he thought he had to pay to access. Upon providing me with the title to one of the articles, I went to locate it through Google Scholar. Of course, the article was listed at the top of the results and it was available at Wayne State. Two databases were listed as having the article available and they were Wilson Select Plus and Business Source Complete. After clicking the Wilson Select Plus link it was discovered that the article was not accessible through them after all. Through Business Source Complete, however, the article was accessible and in a PDF format.

Naturally, the student wanted to know how I was able to access this and other articles. Spending some time talking to him, I learned that he attempted to access these articles through the internet. Most times, articles listed through the internet will lead you to the journal from which it can be found and purchased. People don’t realize the link leading to the journal and/or article will only provide them with an option to purchase it.

Still, he had an interest in learning how he might be able to access these articles on his own. Initially, I recommended and even walked him through the steps of obtaining the articles from Google Scholar. My inner librarian kicked in, and I decided that it would be best to show him how to access the article(s) through Wayne’s library resources.

It pains me to say this, but using Google Scholar was better than using WSU's library resources. First, I went through WSU’s citation linker to type both the article and journal title into the search fields. Next, the journal title(s) where the article was available to be accessed appeared. Selecting one journal title led us to the journals homepage and the publications available throughout the years. Using Wayne’s library resources to try and access that article proved to be very challenging. Plus, citation linker is only useful if the name of the journal title is provided. Meaning, just providing the title of the article will not produce any results for a student to access that article.

Moreover, as a Graduate Student Assistant in the School of Library & Information Science at WSU, I was disappointed. This experience gave me a clear and new understanding as to why students may prefer making Google their first resort. I’ve spent nearly three months advocating for the usage of library resources over Google. Not that I still wouldn’t advocate for library resources but there has to be a way to simplify accessing articles through Wayne. Everything Wayne State provided about the article, Google Scholar did with less clicks and shorter time. We live in a generation where people want instant gratification. The average college student is not going to go through the process of accessing article titles if their library resources resemble Wayne State’s. Bottom line: Both the student and I concurred after trying Wayne and Scholar to go with Google Scholar for its simplicity and understandable format.