[Web4lib] Google Books a tease, not a useful tool, for serious research

Fri Jul 6 10:00:27 EDT 2007

Why not just use Google for that kind of search for more materials?  I just
searched your example on Google and found this list of references on
namebase.org:

   - Aarons,M. Loftus,J. Unholy Trinity.
1992<http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb01/RG>(xv)
   - Blum,H. Wanted: The Search for Nazis in America.
1977<http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb01/MU>(135-41, 164-5)
   - Hersh,S. The Dark Side of Camelot.
1997<http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb01/aW>(158-61)
   - Higham,C. American Swastika.
1985<http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb01/KB>(xxvi, 207-20)
   - Loftus,J. Aarons,M. The Secret War Against the Jews.
1994<http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb01/EE>(223-4)
   - Summers,A. The Arrogance of Power.
2000<http://www.namebase.org/cgi-bin/nb01/fP>(130-5)

-- 
Wilfred (Bill) Drew
Associate Librarian, Systems and Reference
Morrisville State College Library
E-mail: bill.drew at gmail.com
AOL Instant Messenger:BillDrew4
My Wiki: http://billdrew.pbwiki.com
Wireless Librarian: http://people.morrisville.edu/~drewwe/wireless/
Library: http://library.morrisville.edu/
SUNYConnect: http://www.sunyconnect.suny.edu/
My Blog:http://babyboomerlibrarian.blogspot.com
Al Gore quoting an African proverb: "If you want to go quickly, go alone.
But if you want to go far, go together."

On 7/6/07, Coleman, Ronald <rcoleman at ushmm.org> wrote:
>
> I always viewed Google Books as a discovery tool that could help serious
> researchers locate books they can use for their research.  I don't think
> of it as its own standalone research tool.  It doesn't replace the copy
> sitting on the library shelves, but it can lead you to that copy when
> other tools (library catalogs, journal databases, etc) cannot.  It's
> simply another tool in a researcher's "toolbox" of research techniques.
>
> The example I always use when working with researchers is this: Once, at
> the reference desk, I was approached by a historian who was looking for
> information on a Romanian businessman from the 1930s named Nicolae
> Malaxa.  The historian had already looked through all the books on the
> Holocaust in Romania that were in the DS135 R& section--including all
> the books he himself had written on the subject--and came up with
> nothing.  We searched JSTOR, Project Muse, and all the other usual
> suspects, and found nothing.  Before he walked away, I pulled up Google
> Books and tried searching for "Nicolae Malaxa."  The very first hit was
> for a book entitled "Wanted! The Search for Nazis in America," which is
> a title we would never have considered before.  I used the catalog to
> locate the book on our shelves and, sure enough, there was an entire
> chapter on Malaxa.  Again, Google Books didn't replace the book on the
> shelf; it was merely a tool we used to discover it.  In this regard,
> Google Books (and A9, Microsoft Live Book Search, et al) is a useful and
> valuable tool that augments other search techniques.
>
> Your concerns are valid and understandable, but from my perspective it
> seems like you are trying to make this service out to be something it is
> not.
>
>
> Ron Coleman
> Reference Librarian
> United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
> 100 Raoul Wallenberg Place, SW
> Washington, DC  20024
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org
> [mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Richard Wiggins
> Sent: Friday, July 06, 2007 8:22 AM
> To: Web4Lib
> Subject: [Web4lib] Google Books a tease, not a useful tool,for serious
> research
>
> I think we've plumbed these troubled waters before, but my experience
> over
> the last two days has me shaking my head, wondering if Google really
> considers Google Book a serious research tool.
>
> To me, to be useful, a research tool needs these features:
>
> -- You must be able to cite what you find. You must be able to provide a
> reference that others can follow in order to retrieve exactly what you
> retrieved.
>
> -- You must be able to quote it.  That is, you must be able to copy text
> from it and paste that text into an article, an e-mail, whatever.
>
> -- You must be able to reproduce the search that found the item.
>
> -- You must be able to search within the full text.
>
> -- Others must be able to do all of these things.
>
> As a matter of sport in the last couple days I've been trying to chase
> down
> a matter of historical fact:  is the proper name of a thoroughfare in
> East
> Lansing "Harrison Road" or is it "Harrison Avenue."  This has been a fun
> research project worthy of History Detectives (except the subject matter
> is
> a lot more boring than their tales).
>
> Google Book Search offered some tantalizing evidence from the Michigan
> public laws of 1907.  What was especially cool was that the book was
> digitized by the University of California just this past May.
>
> Here's what's not cool:
>
> -- My first search revealed the tantalizing tidbit re the founding of
> East
> Lansing, when Harrison Avenue was a boundary of the town.
>
> --- For some reason, subsequent searches did not pull up that tidbit,
> but
> rather metadata about the volume.
>
> -- And now, unless I'm losing my mind, repeats of the same searches
> don't
> even find that volume.
>
> -- I was able to find the URL in my browser cache, in this bizarre form
> (not
> even sure it will paste)   http://books.google.com/books?id=_VUyAAAAIAAJ
> ....  (In my browser address bar the upper case AAAs are crossed out.)
>
> -- If you manage to locate the PDF and download it, of course you cannot
> search it, because it is a PDF stripped of Acrobat power; the pages are
> images, and not searchable.  This is a volume with 1200 pages.  Eyeball
> scanning for the text that Google Book Search once coughed up on screen
> is a
> waste of time and an insult.
>
> Again, I know we've covered some of this turf, but doesn't the
> combination
> of these facts destroy the value of Google Book Search as a serious
> research
> tool?
>
> Google seems to be paranoid about others mining their data.  Do they
> actually change search behavior to limit the number of searches for a
> book?
> If so it's obviously preventing reproducibility of research and even
> opening
> the door to denial of service.
>
> /rich
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