Reference BackTalk: Bibliographic Supernova

By now I would expect that every librarian in the universe has tried out Google Book Search (GBS). Much has been written about the copyright issues surrounding the Google Book Library Project and its partner libraries, and I do not intend to weigh in on that here. Instead, let's consider what a terrific resource it is for reference staff and bibliophiles everywhere. I have increasingly come to rely upon it to answer thorny questions at the desk, to locate both old and new books (assisted by Google's connection to OCLC's WorldCat.org), and to share my interests with others.

Although presently most of the works contained in GBS are only available in limited preview, it is astounding what you can find. Need a primary source on the laws of 19th-century Britain regarding chimney sweepers? GBS has it. And because 19th-century publications are no longer under copyright, you can read the full text. Need to verify a quote from the Danish philosopher Kierkegaard? No problem: a snippet from a recent book will provide the source and lead you to WorldCat.org to see if your library owns the book or if you need to request it on interlibrary loan.

A graduate student recently asked me to locate an illustration of a Renaissance plague doctor's mask; I found one linked from the first page of GBS results. It was displayed in a limited preview of a book my library owns. We were able to determine immediately that it was a suitable example, and he could cite a reputable text that contains it. Now that was a timely example of Ranganathan's Fourth Law (i.e., save the time of the reader).

Although GBS provides limited data on forthcoming books, I often use it to verify a title I am considering buying, since the Find This Book in a Library link leads to WorldCat.org records from major book jobbers as well as libraries, often well in advance of publication. For any record in GBS, following the Find This Book in a Library link provides you with additional tools OCLC makes available, including the option to export a citation to bibliographic management software or use WorldCat Identities to investigate other works by the same author.

A review of the Inside Google Book Search blog reveals how far it has come in such a short time. New features in the past year include "popular passages," subject headings (both LCSH and Google's own), the ability to clip images or text from the page views of public-domain works and place them on your own web page, and access to the "text layer" (OCR conversion) of a public-domain book. While the inclusion of subject headings allows GBS to function more like a traditional catalog, by collocating similar works in GBS, I suspect "popular passages" and "text layer" will appeal to serious scholars.

Want to know which other books cite a seminal phrase from Jacques Derrida? Follow the popular passages links. Are you a lexicographer tracking the use of a word over time? Find your word in a book in GBS, use the View plain-text converter to switch to the plain-text version, then copy and paste as much context as you need.

Scholars interested in foreign-language books in GBS will increasingly find them there, as the collections of Google's library partners are scanned and added to the database. There is currently no way to restrict a search to a specific language. Instead, try searching GBS in languages like French, German, and Spanish. The Find This Book in a Library feature on these sites leads to WorldCat.org in English, which displays holdings geographically closest to your home library.

And now the best for last: like any good Web 2.0 resource, GBS really excels in its personalization features. To take advantage of these features, you must create a (free) Google Account. Once you have done that, My Library is available to you. As its name suggests, it is a place to park the books you come across in GBS, adding the cover image and all other data about a work contained in GBS to a personal list. Not only can you keep track of books that interest you (and in the case of full-view books, link back to their full text), but you can apply a star rating, write a review, and assign tags (called labels) to books, then share those features with other Google Account holders.

If your friends don't have Google accounts, you use the link to create an RSS feed for your personal library and send that to your friends so they can view your library in a web browser or their favorite feed reader. As you add more books to My Library, your friends will be notified via RSS.

An obvious use of My Library is to record the books that you own to create a personal online catalog much like those on the popular Library Thing. One way to add books to My Library is to search for them in GBS (chances are good that a book you own also appears there). However, you can also use the import tool to feed it a list of ISBNs, then sit back and watch as the cover images and related data come rolling in.

Whether you are a bibliophile keeping track of your own personal library or a reference librarian with the urgent need to locate a piece of information, Google Book Search provides a flexible and ever-present platform for getting the job done. Check it out!