On Thu, May 7, 2009 at 12:42 PM, Patrick Cates <Cates_at_gts.edu> wrote:
> I never said a library catalog will help one find things that aren't in
> the collection; that would be stupid. I'm just saying GBS, etc. are not
> always easier or better than library catalogs.
>
> I would be most interested in your "simple Google search" that gets you
> to Sabin vol. 6.
Ross Singer didn't say he found it, but found some promising starting
points. I found several too, using searches such as |Sabin
Bibliotheca Americana| and |Sabin Bibliotheca Americana 6|. (I'm
using pipes to delimit my search terms as so not to cause confusion by
using quotation marks.). Your argument might carry more weight if you
demonstrated how you found useful information about those books in
worldcat or other catalog sources as opposed to other resouces people
have mentioned.. I've seen plenty of useful information on difficult
to find items in various sites like Amazon and eBay merely because
they were being offered for sale and the private collectors who sell
through those sites included a decent amount of information. Google
usually finds related resources such also has useful writeups.
So perhaps even if Ross doesn't provide his exact search string you
could demonstrate how you searched in Worldcat to find Sabin
Bibliotheca Americana vol. 6 or which record you found a table of
contents notes for Parsons's Early Catholic Americana. I did a quick
search for the first, searching for the title and narrowing by author
like a moderate searcher might do, and only found vol. 11. That had
only very bare bones descriptions. For the latter, I found several
records for different reprints, but almost none I found appeared to
have content notes. Google book search does pull up a copy of a
reprint of Parson's book and the search within the book doesn't seem
to match your above query. Since it's a reprint I can't look in it.
I can't claim I did a great search or what I would have done on a
reference desk, but I certainly did some searches similar to what I
see users doing on other resources.
As for the German correspondent, I know I've statements from Google in
the past they have a tendency to be very conservative with copyright
agreements. If they don't have a clear understanding of the copyright
status of a book in that country, they don't show it. Copyright isn't
the same the wold around and sadly Google has retreated to a more
defensive position in many country. (I don't know the status of any
copyright treaties we have with German. Heck, early in our history
we didn't recognize the copyright of English books if I recall.
Similar to the piracy that occurs in China, American publishers were
printing English works without any money going back to those authors.
I've also been a bit disappointed in Google's handling of reprints and
originals. Ideally if something's a reprint they would have links
back to the original, hopefully public domain work. Hopefully they'll
close up the gap there. I suspect a large issue is that many
libraries haven't sent them many older public domain works as they're
probably fragile. This in turn means only the reprints get added,
many of which fall within the window where Google Books will not
display the full text for.
I'm starting to get sidetracked, but I guess I'm seeking clarification
myself. I can understand Ross' point a little more than yours. It
doesn't take me too long to at least find some hints of your questions
in various online resources, but you didn't make it very clear how you
found the answers to those questions using the catalogs. Some search
terms and actual records might help me understand a bit better. Or am
I missing something more fundamental?
Jon Gorman
Received on Thu May 07 2009 - 15:15:02 EDT