Impact of Google Scholar on Scholars

Here is a bold prediction- Google Scholar will revolutionize academia and academic publishing in the following ways.

First, the citation scores for papers will be used to justify the impact of a particular paper. This will make it harder to dismiss some papers and will help the community see through the hype.

Second, the people Google threatens most in the academic environment are the providers of online databases (e.g. Econlit, PsychInfo, ABI/Inform, Expanded Academic Universe). As Google gets access to more papers, the need for online databases will recede. Deep web, anybody?

Third, Google Scholar will give greater weight to papers in online journals. This will help authors of papers in those journals to get the attention they deserve.

Fourth, Google Scholar will lead to greater use of academic knowledge. One can easily imagine a meeting in a government office somewhere where a sociology paper gets cited.

All four vectors of change are significant.