Re: Google Print Home Page Now Offers Searching

["David P. Dillard" <jwne@astro.ocis.temple.edu>]

While it is true that the location of content of interest in a book still
under copyright may only be seen in some small portion in Google Print,
nevertheless, there are additional options.  Going to the main Google
search tool, one may search the title of the book in quotation marks and
the phrase "find in a library", connecting the two phrases with the
boolean "and" without quotation marks and find a list of libraries that
have the book in ones region using zip code as the search parameter to
find local locations.  If preferred, or if the find in a library search
fails, one may search just the title of the book in Google and in Froogle
Google and often find some very inexpensive editions of the book both new
and used.  This is certainly not as wonderful as viewing the content
needed in Print Google, but it is better than nothing, and of course there
is also interlibrary loan.  One can also, if in a position to purchase
books for their library, consider purchasing the book electronically from
Net-Library if available or from another online book aggregator.  Of
course all of these methods may fail, but they are options to try when the
results in Google Print do not meet ones reading or research needs.

Google Print is at least finding the books needed, and if the search is
covering the entire book of an in copyright book, a depth of searching in
a vast collection of monographs' page by page content, that has never been
possible before, is now available from a no charge search engine.  The
down side is that Google cannot provide a precision search of this vast
ocean of material like a search interface of the quality of Dialog or OVID
or some other similar tools can do.  One will be left with much to sort
through in all but the most specific word combinations that cannot help
but find exactly what one is looking for.  Indeed, the explosion of the
coveage of copyright to extreme lengths of time and the lack of a rigorous
search software to use with this massive collection of material, will
certainly circumscribe the usefulness of the project in terms of finding
on topic content, as far as I can see.  Like other tools, Print Google is
another source that one may use when it works for the specific needs that
one has.

Sincerely,
David Dillard
Temple University
(215) 204 - 4584
jwne@astro.temple.edu
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On Sun, 5 Jun 2005, Dr. James J. O'Donnell wrote:

> The surprising aspect of this is the size and variety of the academic
> collection of humanities titles that is covered by a search here.  But
> the absolutely maddening aspect is that this kind of search-by-snippets
> is of very limited use and so cripples the normal function of a "book"
> as to be a form of torture.  On a typical search you are allowed to read
> the page on which the search term appears and the two pages before and
> after. Now, in one case, because I know the book, I was able to figure
> out a search term that would probably let me see *almost* every page of
> the book, as long as I were willing to do a cumbersome sequence of
> clicks to "page" through the book.  But the natural use of the book
> consequent to such a search -- "aha, he talks about X, so let me look at
> the context" -- is what you can't do.

> (That clever link to search almost every page will be defeated because
> in every title, a set of pages has been made inaccessible to display:  
> "As part of our efforts to protect a book's copyright, a set of pages in
> every in-copyright book will be unavailable to all users.")

> So:  if books are collections of facts and the function of a search is
> to find facts, this is almost useable some of the time.  If books are
> books, it's a bizarre parody of what scholars and students might
> actually do.  I will have to think long and hard about whether and how
> to introduce this function to students.

> But it's awfully useful for a new form of autogoogling -- looking
> yourself up to see who quotes you.

> Jim O'Donnell
> Georgetown University