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

[Jonathan Gorman]

---- Original message ----
>Date: Fri, 6 Jul 2007 10:01:38 -0400
>From: "Richard Wiggins" <richard.wiggins at gmail.com>  
>Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Google Books a tease, not a useful tool, for serious research  
>To: "Brian Walton" <bibphile at gmail.com>
>Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
>
>>
>> >-- You must be able to reproduce the search that found the item.
>> >
>>
>> I'm not sure about this one.  After all, this assumes a static universe.
>>  If you cannot reproduce the same search in an articles database six months
>> later since newer materials are added, is it no longer a serious research
>> tool?
>>
>
>
>Grrrr!  It wasn't six months later -- it was more like six minutes later.
>
>The first search pulled up the info I needed, and offered a page image in
>context.
>
>Great!  I thought, I've found a nugget.
>
>A few minutes later, the same search pulled up a link to metadata about the
>book, not the image in context.
>
>An hour later, I could not locate the same book using the same search I'd
>used an hour before.  I could not find the same book using words in the
>title of the work.  That's when I resorted to the browser cache.
>
>Yes, it's in beta.  Yes, it's free.  I'm trying to grok if it's as reliable
>and useful as a professional tool such as Dialog.
>

I guess I wasn't entirely clear with my points.  I just don't think a list of what a research tool needs to meet is necessarily a great idea, instead I think it's better to to look at the specific failings and strengths of a system.  I do think the variability of searches is a large drawback.  I also think it's still useful for finding materials that are otherwise time-consuming to find.  The variability problem that's already come up several times on this list and seems to be well known.

When you get into rules boundary conditions start getting fuzzy.  If you can't reproduce search results after a day, is it bad?  How about a week?  A month?  etc.  Without a doubt, Google's approach is frustrating and bad user design to be changing it so frequently.  I do think it's largely because, more than any other Google project, this truly is in beta.

Is it going to replace Dialog? Heck no.   Is it a "professional" uber tool?  Heck no.  Did it help me find some extremely hard to find out of print books for my own research and reading pleasure.  Yup.

Again, not trying to frustrate you.  It is a problem.  But as others have said, they'll still keep using it because in some situations it is a useful answer.   When you want to browse through a copy of a out-of-copyright book that Google has, it's often good enough.  It provides on the lower right the "in the book search" and the pdfs.  It ends up being about as  convenient as a printed book.


Jon Gorman