Google Books

I remember hearing about the Google Library Project quite awhile ago (maybe a year?) and was rather impressed that they were undertaking this huge project. Looks like progress is being made!

The site is very helpful if you’re looking for something specific. I’ve been looking for a book that I have on my shelf, Memories of Pope Pius X, to see if I could get an extra copy (the one I have belongs to someone else, and Matthew really loves it…), but it’s long out of print and I’ve had no luck. Much to my surprise, Google Books has it listed! They have no preview available, and no image, but they do provide a link to sites that specifically have it for sale. Perhaps I was using the wrong search terms, or it recently came up for sale, but I hadn’t been able to find it at Abebooks until today.

The search site is really easy to use, and it’s not bad for browsing if you’re looking for a general topic. It could be useful in searching for books to add to our collection. Perhaps it could be used to look for titles in a specific topic, then cross-referencing to see if we have a copy in our system (in much the same way as we currently use Amazon). It looks like a really useful tool! Google is so huge now that it’s good to have a list started of all the books available.

I’m not too concerned about copyright, as Google has a host of lawyers and a multitude of disclaimers plastered all over their site as to how careful they’re being. They have to tread lightly on people’s copyrights if they don’t want to be sued! Maybe I’m too naïve, but I put a lot of faith in hoping they know what they’re doing…