[Web4lib] Query: union search for online books

Mon Mar 16 16:41:35 EDT 2009

Yes.  Such a federated search could be supported by an automated interface
that either had a number of big libraries (e.g. the Carnegie-Mellon million
book project, Google Books, ...) embedded in its source list or that allowe=
d
a user to define a profile that identified a list of catalogs that he wante=
d
searched.  To be convenient, such a search interface would permit filtering=
,
e.g., to books that were downloadable, to free services (in contrast to fee
services, such as that by Amazon), and so on.

I.e., I believe that what I'm seeking would be useful to many people, and
that the tedium of using current interfaces to numerous candidate sources i=
s
readily avoidable with some fairly obvious programming.  It seems to me
unlikely that I'm the first person to identify the implied requirements.

Best wishes, Henry

H.M. Gladney, Ph.D.     HMG Consulting http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/
(408)867-5454

On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 12:37, Peter Noerr <pnoerr at museglobal.com> wrote:

> I'm afraid that to do this you would need to run a search (either a
> federated search or manually sequential) across all the catalogs of
> libraries or other institutions which may have digitized material. For a
> federated search I am certain that nobody has built connectors (to handle
> the standards based and non-standard interfaces) to all those libraries
> however many they may be - we certainly can't claim  "*anybody anywhere i=
n
> the world*" coverage. That rather leaves you on your own hunting for like=
ly
> organizations and searching them one at a time. Or falling back on Google
> and other large digitization projects to see what they have, or the sourc=
es
> other have mentioned. The technology is ahead of the data on this one.
>
> I also don't fancy your chances of getting the information you want from
> almost any of them. Whether digitized, probably you can get that (certain=
ly
> you can, if you search the digitization projects and find the title you
> want), but not metadata about page images or converted text. It will
> probably need looking at the records one at a time.
>
> Peter
>
>
> Dr Peter Noerr
> CTO, MuseGlobal, Inc.
>
> +1 415 896 6873 (office)
> +1 415 793 6547 (mobile)
> www.museglobal.com
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:web4lib-
> > bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Henry Gladney
> > Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 11:10
> > To: Stevens, Julieanne H.
> > Cc: web4lib at webjunction.org
> > Subject: Re: [Web4lib] Query: union search for online books
> >
> > Thank you, but it doesn't seem to be quite what I want.
> >
> > I would like to identify a specific book (in the usual way) and be told
> > whether *anybody anywhere in the world* has made a digital version of
> > it
> > available.  (I can already query many individual sites, such as
> > Archive.org,
> > one after another, but this is both tiresome and likely to be
> > incomplete.)
> >
> > Optionally, I would like to be informed in the same response an
> > indication
> > whether this digital version is merely page images, or consists of
> > searchable text.
> >
> > Best wishes, Henry
> >
> > H.M. Gladney, Ph.D.     HMG Consulting
> > http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/
> > (408)867-5454
> >
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 16, 2009 at 11:02, Stevens, Julieanne H. <
> > jhsteven at law.stetson.edu> wrote:
> >
> > >
> > > I'm not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but
> > Archive.org
> > > has an extensive collection, as well as search capability.  You can
> > search
> > > in a number of collections :
> > > American Libraries | Canadian Libraries | Universal Library | Project
> > > Gutenberg | Biodiversity Heritage Library | Children's Library |
> > Additional
> > > Collections
> > >
> > > Juju Stevens
> > >
> > > Julieanne Hartman Stevens
> > > Reference and  Electronic Resources Librarian
> > > Stetson University College of Law
> > > Law Library
> > > 1401 61st Street South
> > > Gulfport, Florida 33707
> > >
> > > 727-562-7304
> > > Internal extension: 7204
> > > jhsteven at law.stetson.edu
> > >
> > > Information is the currency of democracy.
> > >  - Thomas Jefferson
> > > =83=C0 Think Green - don't print this email unless you really need
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org [mailto:
> > > web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of Henry Gladney
> > > Sent: Monday, March 16, 2009 1:57 PM
> > > To: web4lib at webjunction.org
> > > Subject: [Web4lib] Query: union search for online books
> > >
> > > In recent years several giant digitizations of (mostly) out-of-
> > copyright
> > > books have been mounted, some by commercial enterprises and some by
> > > academic
> > > institutions.  My relatively cursory Google search has not led me to
> > a Web
> > > service from which one can mount a search that inspects a large
> > fraction of
> > > these to determine whether or not a book (or a scholarly article) is
> > > available in digital form.  (I am aware of Google Book Search (see
> > > http://books.google.com/intl/en/googlebooks/about.html ) but
> > currently
> > > believe its scope to be limited.)
> > >
> > > I wonder, has the kind of service been programmed and made available?
> > (I
> > > believe that providing it would be a relatively straightforward
> > programming
> > > task.  If not, perhaps some list member will take it on.)   If you
> > know of
> > > an example, I would be grateful for a pointer to it.  I suspect that
> > other
> > > members of this distribution list would be as interested as I am.
> > >
> > > Best wishes, Henry
> > >
> > > H.M. Gladney, Ph.D.     HMG Consulting
> > http://home.pacbell.net/hgladney/
> > > (408)867-5454
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Web4lib mailing list
> > > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Web4lib mailing list
> > Web4lib at webjunction.org
> > http://lists.webjunction.org/web4lib/
>
>