CPL 2.0 and Google

Trying to decide which part of Google to review is a challenge. I enjoy looking at Google Maps, especially the satellite images, since I love having that bird's eye view of places like my home town. If only the resolution were better! However, I must admit that I tend to use Mapquest more for basic maps to find addresses in Calgary that post-date my trusty printed city map. I have found Google Maps are often inaccurate, and the driving directions are often wrong or incomplete.

I spent some time on Google Scholar. I hadn't realized that you could search patents on Google Scholar. I was able to find four patents my Dad had taken out in the early 1970s on a sawmill edger he had designed, and see the different articles and patents that cited his patents. The actual patent has been reproduced. Something for show my son, who keeps asking "was Grandad really an inventor?"

I wouldn't recommend Google Scholar for articles, however, for a couple of reasons:

1. it's still basic keyword searching, with no subject analysis or authorities, leading to a huge number of hits.
2. on the sample searches I did, payment was required to access the full text.

We have better resources in the E-Library -- the ability to search by subject descriptors makes searching much more precise and in most cases full text is available to library members.