The Google Book Search project has attracted much attention and controversy since it was first announced in 2004 that five major libraries were allowing their collections to be digitized and indexed by Google. One question that is sometimes lost in all the media attention is this: Is Google Book Search a helpful research tool?
As more major academic libraries join the Google Book Search project, Google Book Search certainly has the potential of becoming an increasingly valuable research tool. The Google Book Search collection currently includes over 1 million items, with thousands of titles are added daily.
Below are some examples of how scholars might use Google Book Search, along with the many resources of Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources, as a research and discovery tool.
Using Google Book Search to Locate Full Text Books and Documents
For books that are out of copyright, Google Book Search makes the full text of the book available to the public. The Information Center staff in Green Library recently helped a patron locate information about the influence of the Bible in John Brown's anti-slavery views. In addition to the wealth of information available through various Stanford resources, a search on Google Book Search for "john brown bible slavery" yields 744 items, 633 of them available in Full View.
A sample of relevant titles, not available at Stanford, include:
The Life and Letters of John Brown: Liberator of Kansas and Martyr of Virginia, published in 1891.
Slavery: Its origins, nature and history: Considered in the light of Bible Teachings, Moral Justice, and Political Wisdom, published in 1861.
Google Book Search makes it easy for a scholar to discover and use these primary source documents for their research.
Using Google Book Search to Locate References to Topics within Books
Freshman in the Program in Writing and Rhetoric class on The History of the Bicycle wrote papers on a range of topics related to bicycles and biking. One student was struggling to find resources on her topic of "the changing nature of bicycling clothes and fashion". A search on Google Book Search for "bicycling clothing" reveals several promising resources, including these two:
Beauty and Business: Commerce, Gender, and Culture in Modern America by Philip Scranton contains several pages describing the evolution of women's bicycling clothes, complete with illustrations from Ladies' Home Journal advertisements of the 1890s. This book is available at Stanford.
In the book Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change, author Wiebe E. Bijker devotes several paragraphs to the relationship between changing notions of "appropriate" clothing and the rise in female bicycling in the 1890s. Bijker's book is also available at Stanford.
By searching within the full text of books on Google Book Search, the student was able to discover references to her topic in several scholarly books available at Stanford.
Give Google Book Search a Try
Try out Google Book Search for your own research, and tell us about your experiences by leaving a comment at the Information Center Web site. You can also contact the Information Center for help in using Google Book Search for your research.
