The Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences just published a research report on the role of Google, Google Scholar and Google Books for science, in the framework of the project "Interactive Science":

König, R., Nentwich, M., 2010, Google, Google Scholar und Google Books in der Wissenschaft. Steckbrief III im Rahmen des Projekts Interactive Science. ITA-Reports, Nr. a52-3 hrsg. v. Institut für Technikfolgen-Abschätzung, Wien: ITA (PDF)

The 69-pages report is in German language - here is the abstract in English:

In this report we examine three Google services that can be used for textual searches and assess their impact on (primarily internal) scholarly communication: The universal web search engine Google, the academic search engine Google Scholar and the book search Google Books.

Firstly, we present basic information about the company Google Inc. and its roots. We then introduce each service by outlining important functional principles, namely the searchable databases, the way content is delivered and the available options for users. Starting with Google web search, we also describe some general aspects of search engines.

We found that all three services have effects on (internal) scholarly communication. They seem to be relevant especially with regard to searches for academic information. Since the observed platforms follow functional principles that differ from traditional information systems (e.g. libraries), possible changes are outlined and discussed. We also focus on various other aspects of the specific services, such as the effects of the Google web search on public relations, Google Scholar’s citation analysis functionality, or the legal problems that arise from the Google Books project.

We conclude that despite the preliminary character of this assessment, which results from the dynamics in the field observed, certain aspects seem striking and almost certainly persistent. Due to Google’s market power and popularity and the fact that it shares some goals with academics (gathering and organizing information), it will probably continue to have major effects on scholarly communication. While some of them can be dealt with in the academic system itself, others raise fundamental questions that require a wider perspective.