Decrease in free computer science papers found through Google Scholar

Purpose Google Scholar was used to locate free full-text versions of computer science research papers to determine what proportion could be freely accessed. Design/methodology/approach A sample of 1967 conference papers and periodical articles from 2003-2010, indexed in the ACM Guide to Computing Literature, was searched for manually in Google Scholar, using the paper or article title and the first author’s surname and supplementary searches as needed. Findings Free full-text versions were found for 52% of the conference papers and 55% of the periodical articles. Documents with older publication dates were more likely to be freely accessible than newer documents, with free full-text versions found for 71% of items published in 2003 and 43% of items published 2010. Many documents did not indicate what version of the document was presented. Research limitations/implications Results were limited to the retrieval of known computer science publications via Google Scholar. The results may be different for other computer science publications, subject areas, types of searches, or search engines.