20 things you didn’t know about Google Scholar

Google Scholar, a tool used by researchers around the world, was founded by two researchers. We started Scholar in 2004, physically delivering hard drives to the office (see fact number 2), and two decades later adding new AI features (see fact number 6). To celebrate 20 years of Google Scholar, here are 20 fun facts about its origins, how you can use it and what’s new.

The early days

1. The team started with just two of us. Back in 2004, access to academic information was difficult to navigate and often restricted behind paywalls. We wanted to make it possible for researchers to be able to find and read what their peers had written. After nine months of development, our vision came to life as Google Scholar, which would end up making it easy for people to discover and engage with research.

2. We physically delivered files at first. In the early days of Google Scholar, slow, flaky internet speeds made it hard to gather research to build this online research library. As a workaround, the team embraced a low-tech solution dubbed the "Sneakernet.” Instead of relying solely on slow downloads, publishers would load articles on physical hard drives and we would pick up these drives on the way to the office.

3. A baby set the deadline for launching Scholar. It was crunch time leading up to Thanksgiving, and Alex was awaiting the birth of his son, Nicholas. He was heading out on paternity leave shortly, but we still had a lot of work to bring Scholar into the world. We pulled some all-nighters to meet our deadline — and to make sure Alex wouldn’t miss the birth of his child.

4. Scholar’s product motto pays tribute to our fellow researchers. In the research community, we build on the foundation laid by others, hence our product motto: “Standing on the shoulders of giants.” It's a testament to the collaborative nature of discovery and Scholar’s goal to help researchers everywhere readily access and build upon the accumulated knowledge of those who have come before. We hope to always be able to help researchers everywhere see further.

5. Our goal is to make Scholar comprehensive. Imagine a library with tons of books, articles and research papers, in numerous languages, from every corner of the world. That’s what we aim to do with Scholar. On its index, you can find peer-reviewed online academic journals and books, conference papers, theses and dissertations, preprints, abstracts, technical reports and other scholarly literature.

Features available on Scholar

6. Review a paper efficiently and effectively with AI outlines. We recently added AI outlines to Scholar PDF Reader to help you read papers both quickly and in depth. PDF reader provides a one-click preview of cited articles, linked figure and table mentions, citing and related articles. Now with AI outlines, you can quickly grasp the main points or delve into specific details that pique your interest, explore methods, results, discussions or any intriguing nuance.

7. Unlock the law with Scholar’s “Case law” button. For most of the first 250 years of U.S. history, accessing legal documents was a challenge because they weren't easily accessible. But thanks to Google Scholar's comprehensive case law collection, anyone can explore the laws that govern them. Just select "Case law" below the search bar, type your query and dive in.

8. Copy article citations in the style of your choice. No more manually formatting bibliographies. With a click of the "cite" button, Google Scholar provides ready-to-use citations in a number of different formats. Simply select and use the style you need.

9. Celebrate research milestones. At Scholar, we know how hard it is to reach the finish line. That’s why we take celebrating milestones pretty seriously and have a balloon display on the Scholar homepage for users who reach a milestone number of citations.

Tools and tricks to make the most out of Scholar

10. Expand your access to research.Today Google Scholar partners with libraries and publishers worldwide to ensure access to subscription-based articles directly within your search results. And if a free version exists (like a preprint), Scholar will point you there, too.

11. Create your own research library. With Google Scholar, you can save articles to your personal library with a single click. Organize your research, create custom folders and access your library from anywhere with an internet connection.

12. Become a research “superfan.” In the fast-paced world of academia, staying current is essential. On Scholar, you can follow specific authors to receive email alerts every time they publish something new. This feature allows researchers and students to easily track new discoveries, trends, debates and stay up-to-date on the latest research from the people who matter most to you and of course your competitors.

13. More papers, not less, during the pandemic: Library subscriptions are usually available only while you’re on campus. Once you go home you lose all access. When COVID-19 hit, researchers everywhere were locked out of their labs and worked from home. Thanks to work we had done with publisher partners on portable subscriptions — Scholar’s off-campus access program — researchers could still get their work done. In fact, during the pandemic, researchers read and wrote more than ever before, leading to a sharp jump in papers published between 2020 and 2021.

Unexpected ways people have used Google Scholar

14. Google Scholar can reconnect you with family history. An ex-teammate of ours used Scholar to rediscover a research article on acute histoplasma pericarditis that her father had published 40 years earlier and long forgotten about. Talk about a blast from the past.

15. Users have professed their love for Scholar. (We’re blushing.) At the peak of finals season, Scholar has received marriage proposals from grateful students with some taking to social media to share their love (and sometimes even propose marriage.).

Unexpected finds on Google Scholar

16. Lights, camera, legal action: Ever wished a legal case read like a Hollywood movie? In US v. Syufy Enterprises (1990) about Las Vegas movie theaters, Judge Kozinski snuck the names of over 200 films into his opinion. Indeed, Scholar has uncovered a trove of legal opinions written in various guises from a song to simple verse and even the style of a hard-boiled detective.

17. Think your research abstract is concise? Think again. Check out this physics abstract that contains only two words — “Probably not.” It's proof that sometimes, less is more (at least in the world of academic publishing).

18. A paw-sitive contribution to Physics. F.D.C Willard (otherwise known as Chester, the Siamese cat) is listed as a co-author on an article entitled: “Two, Three, and Four-Atom Exchange Effects” that explores the magnetic properties of solid helium-3 and how interactions between its atoms influence its behavior at extremely low temperatures. Chester’s starring role came about because his co-author/owner, Jack H. Hetherington wrote the entire paper with the plural “we” instead of a single “I.”

19. Unusual research mashups. 2020 brought COVID-19 into research of every kind. We found nearly every topic you can think of having a paper on its association with COVID. For example, search "chocolate COVID", "football COVID", or "comics COVID" and check out the results.

20. Some scientific discoveries truly take a village. There's a key paper about the measurement of the Higgs boson with over 5,000 authors, nine pages of research and 24 pages listing everyone involved. In two decades of Scholar, we haven't seen a paper with this much teamwork.