Microsoft Launches Competitor To Google Scholar

Microsoft Launches Competitor To Google ScholarThe beta version of Windows Live Academic Search lets users search the Web for journal articles, academic papers, and notes and slides from scholarly conferences. TechWeb.com Apr 12,
Microsoft Corp. introduced a new Windows Live Academic Search lets users search the Web for journal articles, academic papers, and notes and slides from scholarly conferences in computer science, electrical engineering and physics.
The search effort between Academic Search, industry association CrossRef and more than 10 publishers connect users to primary research material. CrossRef, a nonprofit group, operates a citation-linking platform allowing researchers to legally access millions of articles and other content from several hundred scholarly and professional publishers.

Academic Search will source journals from the Association for Computing Machinery, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Reed Elsevier and Wiley & Sons. Reading more than the abstract, however, requires a subscription. The initial beta for the service is available in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and Australia.
The tool for researchers, students, librarians, and journalists narrows searches to specific interests. There are plans to add journals from medicine, psychology, history and art in phases following the initial launch.
Academic Search supports OpenURL, the library standard used for linking to subscription-based content via the Web, and Open Architecture Initiative (OAI) protocol to index OAI-compliant repositories. For example, Microsoft has indexed the content in ArXiv.org. Microsoft also provides a list of the journals and source indexes. Functions also include the OpenURL standard to allow users to click on the link in their library Open URL to determine their access to the full text.
The site competes with Goolge Scholar and SciFinder Scholar, which cover a broad subject range.