More evidence against indexes

Van Orsdel and Born report that Google has relentlessly ‘strengthened its claim as the ubiquitous front door to the web and all of its content’, including scholarly content. They found that Google is responsible for referring 56% of the users of HighWire journals, and our own study shows that over 70% of researchers use it routinely to find scholarly content. Moreover, web search engine referrals also appear to account for the vast majority of accesses to institutional repositories.

[Researchers' Use of Academic Libraries and their Services]