Comparing Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scirus

Dean Giustini and Eugene Barsky, A look at Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scirus: comparisons and recommendations, a preprint forthcoming from the Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association. Excerpt:

In summary, information professionals have no choice but to recommend Google Scholar under certain conditions and caveats. Librarians should be prepared to teach GS and PubMed side by side and answer questions about it, especially how it compares to commercial tools like OVID. Clearly, GS provides an easy means to access the health literature. Health librarians should not dismiss it outright, especially for simple browsing, known-item searching, and linking to free materials on the open Web. Where literature reviews are required, i.e., grants, clinical trials, or systematic reviews, health librarians will continue to recommend MEDLINE, Cochrane (with Google for grey literature), and other trusted sources. Finally, clinical queries must be answered by replacing requests in context. Health professionals already search Googleand will continue to use it (responsibly, one hopes) to satisfy their basic information needs.