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.