[Web4lib] A Library to Last Forever - NY Times OpEd pieceon GoogleBook Search

[Mark Denham]

I fear that what we are seeing is the further rise of the concept that
if you cannot find it through google it does not exist. The idea that
anyone might search worldcat is beyond their comprehension. I guess this
is why worldcat and other services are working so hard on making their
systems google friendly. 


----- Original Message -----
From: K.G. Schneider <kgs at bluehighways.com>
Sent: Sat, 10/10/2009 7:21am
To: 'B.G. Sloan' <bgsloan2 at yahoo.com> ; web4lib at webjunction.org
Subject: Re: [Web4lib] A Library to Last Forever - NY Times OpEd piece
on GoogleBook Search

> Sergey Brin, co-founder and technology president of Google, has an 
> opinion piece on Google Book Search in the NY Times:
> 
> http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/opinion/09brin.html
> 
> Bernie Sloan
> 

As I've pointed out in other forums (Twitter, Facebook), you can kibosh
the tearjerking example of the Stanford report that is no more with a
quick WorldCat search, which surfaces 4 copies. Since WorldCat is a
subset of all-the-books-that-are, it's possible there are even more
copies than that.
I don't dispute the reality that books disappear and digitization is
important (by... someone...), but it's a pretty amazing thing to be too
big to be fact-checked.

Karen G. Schneider