ResourceBlog Article: Look for the Release of Microsoft Live Academic Search This Tuesday

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Saturday, 8th April 2006

Look for the Release of Microsoft Live Academic Search This Tuesday

Search Briefs
+ Look for the Release of Microsoft Live Academic Search This Tuesday
NOTE: This post was removed after first being posted on Sunday. We reposted this item late Tuesday.

UPDATE 4/12: Academic Live has now launched. After seeing the service in action these comments still reflect our views. We've posted more info and comments here.

Comments from Dean Giustini (he's seen it) here. He writes, "Was I impressed? In short, I wasn't bowled over, but I wasn't disappointed either. Given the MAS team has worked like demons for ~ five months, they've come up with a useful tool. But it's only the start of what will likely be a protracted period of product development." UPDATE: Giustini also has just posted this detailed overview. Microsoft will also launch Live Product Search on Tuesday. More here. ResourceShelf has not seen the product but here are a few reactions to what Dean writes.
+ Citation importing feature
Great idea. Reminds me in concept of RedLightGreen, the book database, that allows the user to format and export the citation in one of five bibliographic formats.
+ From the post: "Microsoft will be upfront about what's in MAS, including open access content."
Will they offer a crawl or collection development policy? In other words, what is included? What is not included? Will MS offer the chance for the researcher to review their source list? Will they tell us how often and when the database is updated? Will they offer a date stamp as to when the record was discoverd and placed into the database? Will the database also include books? If/when it does, will direct access to them at the local level be available?
+ Use of Sliders
We're big fans of sliders here at ResourceShelf that allow the end user to focus their search results set as seen here and here from Yahoo. MSN Search also offers sliders as part of their "Search Builder" tool. However, it's worth pointing out that the search builder is NOT part of the current Live Search beta. This leads me to believe that the Search Builder and sliders were not used all that often. Unfortunately, that makes sense to us. Why? Most likely did not know they were available and what they could offer. Advanced search features are not a field of dreams, building them doesn't mean that people will come and use them. Of course, info pros can help get the word out and explain why they are or are not useful. A slider is available from MSN Live Search that allows the searcher to determine if they see a "snippet" below the title of a result.
UPDATE: After seeing Academic Live in action the slider available only allows the searcher to determine how much info they see or don't see in the result snippet. I agree with Steven, in this case, a waste of time. I would have been interested to see
if Academic Live users, if told, would have made more use of sliders to build more precise queries.
+ "No citation/cited by searching"
Surprising. This is an important tool and a key feature of fee-based services like Scopus and Web of Knowledge. On the open web, CiteSeer and SmealSearch offer citation searching along with Google Scholar. NOTE: CiteSeer also now offers "Acknowledgement Search."

UPDATE: Some citation searching is AVAILABLE. IF the article is included in the CiteSeer database the user can click a link in Academic Live and open CiteSeer to view citations. If the article is not found in CiteSeer than citation review is not available. The actual Citeseer site offers direct citation searching and numerous other features.

+++ Some of the things I'm interested in seeing: how Live Academic Search will be integrated into MSN Live Web Search result sets, if/will end users be able to access the full text of articles at a local level (from all library types), identification of pre-prints from official published versions.

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