Microsoft Launches Beta of its Scholarly Search Service

Microsoft this week unveiled a beta version of its competitor to Google Scholar, Windows Live Academic Search, a new Internet search service tailored to finding scholarly material. The new search service is a cooperative effort between Windows Live Search, CrossRef, and more than ten leading publishers. The initial beta release will target the subjects of computer science, electrical engineering and physics, and the company is working with multiple organizations to bring new subjects online in the near future. Like Google Scholar, Windows Live Academic Search will search for results among peer-reviewed content from trusted academic sources, including leading scholarly societies. Collaborators with Microsoft on the service include the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and publishers Elsevier, John Wiley & Sons, the Taylor & Francis Group, Blackwell Publishing, and the Nature Publishing Group. The British Library and OCLC Online Computer Library Center are also collaborating.