Written By Reprise Media | August 30, 2006 | Share This |

Taking baby steps towards their global library, today Google Book Search released a number of out-of-copyright books as PDF downloads. With the new service, consumers can print PDF versions of classics that were previously only viewable online. Examples here here and here.
The service comes, however, with a number of limitations. In addition to […]

The service comes, however, with a number of limitations. In addition to technical difficulties
pointed out by Search Engine Watch blog, the PDFs are hard to read and can be hundreds of pages long. Numerous similar projects already exist, most notably Project Gutenberg, where books in the public domain are available for download in significantly smaller (and readable) files. As SEW points out, its difficult to find PDFed books in G BS without an advanced search, or exact keyword search for an author/title. Regular Google SERPS don’t include listings for the downloads, and beyond this search widget, it doesn’t look like G is doing much to promote the adoption of its Book Search, much less the new PDFs. Despite Google’s extended audience reach, between printing costs and the unreadable scan quality of most texts, its unclear what advantage it has over competing archives.

Google Book Search Sample PDF.JPG

Regardless of said usability issues, I know a few english lit professors who would appreciate the archival value of out-of-print and original works. G book search can turn a relatively obscure
publication into a top 10 search result. Hence the significant adoption of Google Book Search by academic publishers, in contrast with the growing opposition garnered by the commercial press (see the Screw Google post in Publishers Weekly).

However, if the goal of Book Search is to provide “access to large collections of books…from some of the world’s greatest collections,” its real benefit is as a publically accessible library record. Which is why i’m suprised that no one picked up on the Library Catalog Search feature that Google launched last week. Listed in Google’s Advanced Search options, this new function tells you exactly how many libraries hold a copy of that obscure academic text and which are closest to you. For researchers, this is a new point of accessibilty into previously closed university catalogs.

It takes 717 sheets of paper to print the PDF version of a Tale of Two Cities. Save the trees people. Don’t print out the pdf, Book Search the library and walk there.

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Topics: Google |