"...but none of this involved a library, much less a library catalog."
Okay, but those older books available through Google come from libraries and you are taking advantage of the past accomplishments of libraries every time you search on Google Books. Indeed, the library-soaked nature of Google Books becomes all too apparent whenever one finds a book full of some patron's marginalia and underlining.
When we take advantage of the benefits of Google Books, bypassing the library catalog and the library shelves, let's not forget that libraries made a big chunk of Google Books possible.
George Wrenn
Cataloging Librarian
Humboldt State University Library
----- Original Message -----
From: "Ed Jones" <ejones_at_NU.EDU>
To: NGC4LIB_at_LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Sent: Thursday, May 27, 2010 9:35:00 AM GMT -08:00 US/Canada Pacific
Subject: [NGC4LIB] Not sure what this means
I'm not sure what this means, but I thought I would recount it, since I suspect my experience is not that uncommon among contemporary researchers.
I received my weekly e-mail bulletin from the Times Literary Supplement this morning. Browsing its contents, I came on a summary concerning a published collection of old photographs of London. Clicking on it, I was taken to the corresponding review in the TLS. The review mentioned by title a 17-volume 1902 survey of life in London and, curious, I copied and pasted the title into my browser's Google Books search box to see what I would find. It returned the complete set, readable online since they fall within the public domain. This all took less than a minute from opening the e-mail to perusing a volume in the set. I've grown so used to such sequences, that I had to stop to consider how remarkable it was.
I know this has been said before, but none of this involved a library, much less a library catalog. Since the library and its catalog are the primary focus of my working life, this concerns me (to say the least). Over the last few years, I have found the library increasingly marginalized in my own research. Several years ago I loaded my library's LibX edition to my browser, and since then my forays into my library's resources occur primarily when my Web or Google Scholar searches provide a link (thanks to LibX) to a local copy of a subscription resource or offer an OPAC search as an alternative. Most of the resources I use now, however, are non-subscription web resources. I'm of two minds on this. As a librarian, I'm alarmed; as a researcher, I'm thrilled.
Ed Jones
National University, San Diego
Received on Thu May 27 2010 - 13:40:38 EDT