Like many MSU students, family community services senior Megan Holm found researching with MSU library's MAGIC catalog a frustrating experience.
"I had the hardest time using it," Holm said. "I just did not know what to do."
While some consider the library as a primary resource when doing research, others opt instead for Internet search engines such as Google. But soon students and researchers could have the best of both, thanks to a partnership between MSU library officials and the search giant.
Google recently approached Innovative Interfaces Inc., the longtime vendor of MSU's MAGIC catalog, in regard to setting up a pilot project to combine Innovative Interfaces software with the Google Scholar search engine, said Nancy Fleck, assistant director of technical services at the MSU library. Google Scholar is an academic search engine for scholarly literature.
The new technology would link search results in Scholar to available library resources, giving users connected to the library the ability to view the full content of subscription materials.
"In many cases, it doesn't provide you the access to get directly to the article," Fleck said of the current limitations of Scholar. "This is going to be much more specific."
Google is currently in the process of integrating MSU's catalog into Scholar, but Fleck said she was impressed with the progress they've made in only a few weeks.
"They've been working pretty fast," she said. "I'm encouraged that it will be up pretty soon."
The partnership with Google comes in the midst of library efforts to update MAGIC, MSU's electronic catalog of print resources. Last Friday, Fleck said she was planning to sit down with a small group of library officials to discuss possible changes to MAGIC.
The library is looking into purchasing cover art, Fleck said, which would allow users to see book jackets in MAGIC search results.
"You will see some changes by fall," she said. "We want to make some things visible right away, and we'll add other things as we go along."
Fleck said the ongoing process of making the library's electronic resources searchable through MAGIC is making steady progress, and she hopes the project would be 90 percent completed by fall.
MSU students studying at the library Friday afternoon agreed that any improvements to MAGIC would be welcomed.
"Sometimes, looking through electronic resources is difficult at first," premedical junior Natosha Murry said, as she studied for organic chemistry. "It seems like it would make things easier to find."
Many students said they preferred Internet search engines to MAGIC.
"I definitely use Google," finance junior Chris Copus said. "It's not really easy to walk to the library when you live off campus."
Fleck said libraries have been responding to the influence of the Internet.
"There is a distinct shift in the way students and researchers use libraries," she said. "Libraries recognize that students don't always come to the library."
She said the Scholar project was an alternative way to give students access to library content.
"It's another way for the library to highlight the resources we pay for," she said.
Google has made several forays into cataloging academic libraries in the past year. The more ambitious Google Print project is attempting to digitize the collections of several university libraries, including the University of Michigan Library in Ann Arbor.
John Wilkin, associate university librarian at U-M, said the Google Print project was moving along smoothly.
"It's rather uncontroversial in the research library community," he said. "We believe getting this information out there is for the public good."
Wilkin said Google began digitizing books from the U-M library last July.
"Google is aiming for some time in the next three months for the next big push of content," he said.
Patrons of the U-M library will be able to access digital copies of library materials through a Google-hosted server. Wilkin said that U-M would also receive digital copies for their own use.
Fleck said some librarians still have concerns about the prospect of digital libraries, and MSU hasn't been approached by Google to be involved in the Print project.
"Libvraries are kind of sitting back and watching how it all filters out," she said. "It's the legal issues that we're still trying to figure out."
Bob Darrow can be reached at darrowro@msu.edu.
