Decrease in free computer science papers found through Google Scholar

• Published in: Online information review Vol. 38; no. 3; pp. 348 - 361
• Main Authors: A. Pedersen, Lee, Arendt, Julie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Bradford Emerald Group Publishing Limited 01.01.2014; Emerald
• Subjects: Academic Libraries; Algorithms; Automation; Citations; College campuses; Computer science; Conference Papers; Doctoral Dissertations; Exact sciences and technology; Information and communication sciences; Information behaviour & retrieval; Information professionals; Information science. Documentation; Library & information science; Library and information science. General aspects; Library collections; National Surveys; Open access; Periodicals; Scholarly communication; Sciences and techniques of general use; Search engines; State Surveys; Studies; Subscriptions; Success; Computer science; Document versions; Open access; Google Scholar; Search engine; Paper; Document
• ISSN: 1468-4527; 1468-4535
• DOI: 10.1108/OIR-07-2013-0159

Purpose – Informally computer scientists reported they could access free copies of research papers they needed via tools such as Google Scholar. To ascertain whether this perception came from widespread free access or from unnoticed employer-paid access, the purpose of this paper was to locate computer science papers and determine what proportion was freely available using Google Scholar. Design/methodology/approach – A sample of 1,967 conference papers and periodical papers from 2003 to 2010, indexed in the ACM Guide to Computing Literature, was searched for manually in Google Scholar, using the paper or article title and the first author's surname and supplementary searches as needed. Findings – Free full-text versions were found for 52 per cent of the conference papers and 55 per cent of the periodical papers. Documents with older publication dates were more likely to be freely accessible than newer documents, with free versions found for 71 per cent of items published in 2003 and 43 per cent of items published in 2010. Research limitations/implications – Results were limited to the retrieval of known computer science publications via Google Scholar. Future research could examine whether the decline found in this study is specific to Google Scholar or reflects a decrease in the free sharing of research by computer scientists. Originality/value – Previous research for computer science found lower levels of free access than this research determined, but the decline found in this study runs contrary to increases that have been found. This research confirms many computer science papers are available for free but also that subscription holdings are necessary for complete coverage of papers in the field.