Ist Google Scholar gefährdet?

Joshua Gans stellt die Frage, die sich nach dem Ende des Google Readers viele stellen: Welcher Dienst steht noch auf der Abschussliste? Bislang wurden ja nur klar gescheiterte Projekte eingestellt, jetzt ging es einem etablierten und erfolgreichen Projekt an den Kragen. Das Vertrauen, dass eine der wohl profitabelsten Firmen überhaupt die wichtigen Dienste nicht einfach einstellt, ist erschüttert. Damit beginnt die Frage, wie abhängig man von ihr geworden ist. Joshua Gans sieht Google Scholar als so zentral, dass es jetzt dringend eine unabhängige Alternative braucht:

I don’t know if Google operates that way although they seem to claim that they do. But if they do, then we have to worry. When Google integrated its services with a common toolbar, Reader was relegated to a sub-menu. It used to be very prominent. But we all know that other services have similarly been reduced in stature. The most significant of these is Google Scholar.

It is not a stretch to say that Google Scholar, to a frightening extent, powers academic reward systems and most critically discovery of scientific research. While Google Reader will get substitutes and the loss will not be felt for long, Scholar would be another matter. If Google killed off Scholar next year, there would be no easy substitute. Discovery of academic research would fall back into the hands of major publishers. I remember that regime and, put simply, it was costly and often not worthwhile to search. Scholar changed all of that.

Given the worrying loss of Google Reader, I want to suggest here that academics need to be more proactive in working out how to get a Google Scholar replacement out there and independent of commercial interests. How to do that? I don’t know. But let’s face it, we should waste no time in trying to figure this out.

Da hat er vollkommen Recht.