Google Books - full view by the numbers

So I was taking a look and finding some interesting stuff about Google books today...
If you use the advanced search feature and limit to Full View only you can have some fun with the date, say you select 0001-2008, the result is: 2,300,600 (Interesting, a few days ago it was 1.4M). Something is funny, so let's do the math...

If I search year by year, from 2000 to 2008, there are a total of 35,885 Full View books, but when I search 2000 - 2008 in the advanced search, there are 28,300, so either I am only calculating 7,585 incorrectly twice, or I need to better understand how Google counts or limits work.

However, moving away from search result consistency and accuracy, and back to the real question behind my Google Books search... What's there by date range...

Date range # Full View Books
2000-2008 28,300
1990-1999 16,400
1980-1989 3,649
1970-1979 2,013
1960-1969 924
1950-1959 771
1940-1949 534
1930-1939 589
1920-1929 123,600 (Obviously, a correlation with Public Domain)
1910-1919 266,600
1900-1909 525,600
1850-1899 1,090,599
1800-1849 419,600
1750-1799 67,990
1700-1749 14,880
1650-1699 3,846
1600-1649 1,723
1500-1599 2,027
1400-1499 273
1300-1399 450
1200-1299 178
1100-1199 0
0001-1099 1

So what is the oldest book?
Drum roll... It was published in 1055....
OK, you have to find out by clicking on the link: http://books.google.com/books?id=t4vgeIvyVqwC&printsec=frontcover

Some takeaway thoughts from my little adventure searching and looking:

• Using MyLibrary in Google Books is very COOL provided you don't mind letting Google know even more about you and you and you... (You know what I mean)


• Review service is very easy to use.


• I LOVE that you can easily report page view problems (Although the link is buried on the right side while viewing pages) This is the kind of Delivery to Discovery value feedback that I want to post about soon later.


• Date issues for limits - the limit isn't clarifying which calendar system you use


• Pretty bizzare mix of materials, and I do like the utilities and services available from Google Books - I only wish it would allow us customizing our holdings and branding, oh, and be able to provide context and highlight seminal works.

Enough pondering on a slow Friday at the reference desk. Have a great weekend everyone.

Language Computer in the Library

I was asked if the Library would purchase a Rosetta Stone Spanish Level 1 & 2 for $323.10 at Amazon and make it available on a standalone computer in the library.

First thought... What a great idea? (budget troubles aside)...

Second thought... How would we market this resource well and not make it another expensive reference like item that is rarely used... discovery, space, context and convenience matters. Knowing that this is a tool you want to listen to means headphones, but repeating the sounds means an interesting conversation in the study carrel next door, or a music practice room - which doesn't lend to discovery very well.

So, I ponder on...
How have others managed this resources...

I turn to searching online - the Internet first...
I was quick to find that Rosetta recently discontinued it's online offering: http://www.fcpl.org/information/general/rosetta.htm However, there are still some libraries that are able to offer the online service: http://www.lib.az.us/extension/rosettastone.cfm

Distracted - because I am working late tonight, I wonder into asking and searching, what are some other language learning environments like?

A brief search nets...

• Wikiversity is text based: http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Spanish
• MP3 based: http://www.cnr.berkeley.edu/ucce50/ag-labor/spanish/
• Wow, mouse over triggered audio: http://www.languageguide.org/espanol/grammar/
• And the BBC, one of my favorite library websites, I mean news website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/lj/ (found this searching delicious tags of spanish)
• Free/Commercial: http://www.studyspanish.com/pronunciation/vowel_a.htm
• Had to also check out YouTube to find a variety: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=learn+spanish&search_type=&aq=f

So having performed all these searches to select several resources of interest, I finally turn to the catalog... 13 hits from doing a search learn spanish using the catalog and find the most relevant title is the last on the list, can you guess my treasure...
2 discs. 33 1/3 rpm. mono. 12 in. - a 1958 phonodisc. Worldcat.org offers an improved list, with a 1990-1992 cassette on the top of the list.

Clearly, discovery may be an issue... So I conclude my late night work thinking...

How important is learning a language to our users, and as a result, to offering a library service?

Public libraries tend to make language learning resources a highly visible resource, but what are academic libraries doing?

What partnerships make sense with our Foreign Language departments & their labs, and other academic departments interested in Spanish?

Questions to discuss with my fantastic colleagues at Geneseo - but to anyone out there... what works well, what ideas do you have? Thanks.

Technical Services as ER - TV metaphors for Libraries

I was pleased to see such a fun and creative video done about Technical Services: http://www.ahml.info/vlog/default.asp?ID=49

The analogy of an emergency room is an interesting one and makes me wonder what might apply for other library service videos, such as; reference, instruction, circulation, etc.

CSI maybe an ideal TV expression of our roles in reference and instruction; I mention that because Kim Davies Hoffman and other librarians, working with the Education department at Geneseo chose CSI as a theme for a very successful instruction program with high school students last summer. http://library.geneseo.edu/~kdhoffman/YoungScholarsAcademy.htm

Anyone have other ideas from TV might work for our roles, teaching, services, etc.?

Best wishes, Cyril

Marketing online books looses it's separate shelf at Microsoft

Some interesting news about Microsoft’s wonderful Live Search Books service. http://blogs.msdn.com/livesearch/archive/2008/05/23/book-search-winding-down.aspx
Looks like their Book index is going away, and we just have to find those free full-text books in their general search engine.

Why am I sharing it?
There are lots of books and articles requested by ILL that are available online for free.
Although I more frequently find free full-text books in Google Books, I am happier with the free color full-text books, some new titles, and search results in Live Search Books. According to Microsoft, Live Search Books and Live Search Academic has digitized 750,000 books and indexed 80 million journal articles. I don’t think Google has published how many titles they have in Google books yet, but that would be interesting. Anyone know?

This news also makes me wonder about the competition and future of mass digitization. One of the most interesting aspects of mass digitization is one of the outcomes, a co-existence of free and fee works. Mass digitization is not only making works available online for free, the works are also being made into reprints for fee. Libraries can now upload their digitized public domain works into Amazon (relatively cheaply for about $99/book), and have them reprinted on demand (appears like any other book in Amazon’s search) If purchased, Amazon as publisher (see Book Surge: http://www.booksurge.com/), takes care of printing, binding, and sending to a customer, and the library gets a % of the market sales. The specific benefits to resource sharing – free online or an answer to the problem of trying to borrow early editions that are increasingly being locked away as rare and medium rare books.

If you want to see examples of this service, just open up Amazon and search for books with “Michigan Historical Reprint Series” to see several thousand titles. A number of universities are now involved in this type of service – any comments from them?


Tips on searching for free online books:
Google Books: http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search (Search - Full view only)
Microsoft (old location): http://search.live.com/books
Open Content Alliance: http://www.archive.org/details/opencontentalliance
Project Gutenberg: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
International Children’s Digital Library: http://www.icdlbooks.org/ (one of my favorite catalogs)
UPenn: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/

Anyone want to share their searching tips/locations?

Best wishes,

Cyril

Like a moth to a Kindle

Amazon's Kindle - the new e-book reader (and more) is out, well, sort of, initial demand out paced supplies. Curious: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m2S5YCKCJJ64W8

First thoughts; great use of mobile phone platform to support the networking of electronic books. While it will be interesting to see how people adapt to this new form of book, what impresses me is the scope of Amazon's content delivery service.

Note that besides being a key resource for buying new and used print copies, Amazon has been moving into electronic copies for quite awhile; besides acquiring a French company that produced Mobipocket http://www.mobipocket.com/ , which targets book sales for PDAs and phones, Amazon added some articles, chapters, e-books, etc. from publishers to their online marketplace.

Why I say scope...
Amazon's is working with the complete content distribution picture - besides marketing new & used print...

From the digitization services (as provided by Kirtas & Amazon: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=176060&p=irol-newsArticle&ID=1018605&highlight= )

To the reprinting services (really a publishing service) as provided by Amazon's BookSurge http://www.booksurge.com/ - which reformats electronic books to those of us who want to write in the margins with pencil/pen. By the way, BookSurge services can have a very significant impact on library services, such as ILL borrowing; buying reprinted medium-to-rare books in lieu of significant efforts to borrow an original, and even collection development / ILL - for selection and finding sources for self-published works.

OK, back to the Kindle...
It will be very interesting to see it and competitor products; Sony's e-reader, smartphones and various distributors, such as Fictionwise: http://www.fictionwise.com/ .

How will these new devices and services drive new behaviours and opportunities for both our users and libraries?

It is also very interesting to see the free access to Wikipedia via Kindle. Essentially, Kindle is not a free web browser, however, you have to wonder why free wikipedia? Is it because it provides valuable context and connection for the worlds of books and life? Is wikipedia a selling point?

Lastly, one has to wonder...
Will Kindle be a 'free' 10 ounce interface to the Amazon marketplace, so we can carry an online world store with us everywhere?
& secondly, what additional fee based services may be tacked onto the Kindle over time?


Looks like I will just have to wait to find out - best wishes.

Reciprocal Faculty Borrowing Program - Let's do more...

Hello Everyone,

A few weeks ago, one of our faculty members was told that in order to check out at a nearby library, they would need to obtain an OCLC RFBP card from their home institution first (then return to check out the books in their present hands). The reference department had cleaned house recently, so those RFBP cards weren't available, but the process of obtaining new cards and helping this user made me wonder why hasn't this program evolved. OK, first the basics...

This is a borrowing program that over 100 libraries signed on years ago. It originated from an OCLC reference advisory committee, and it basically enables authorized card carrying faculty members to check out from participating libraries - provided they get the card before they drop by the library. If you are wondering if your institution is on the list - I added the link to the program list on SHAREILL's network page:
http://www.shareill.org/index.php/Library_networks_and_consortia Note: OCLC will update this 1999 website with the following details and more:
Details about the program: from OCLC's Online Publication #46a http://cyril.oberlander.googlepages.com/OCLC-Online46a-RFBP.pdf
What does the card look like?
http://cyril.oberlander.googlepages.com/OCLC-RFBP-BorrowingCard.pdf

When I asked the ILL Listserv for feedback on the program, it's obvious that about one maybe two cards are issued every year - so marketing this program hasn't exactly reached the faculty population, or the library staff that are usually surprised by questions about RFBP.

While this program seems revolutionary for the time, we can do more...

How about the resource sharing wings of IFLA and ALA take their lead from the rethinking resource sharing initiative http://www.rethinkingresourcesharing.org/ and enhance this type of program with more libraries, less hurdles, more systematic and authorize more users.

A most wonderful librarian, in talking about the need for reviving this program recently wrote "Of course, my real dream is to create a national library card that we can use at any library in the country. Now *that* would be a real service for the library user!" I agree and further, I think we could even create a global library card - now that is a card I want in my wallet! Lastly, in many ways, ILL serves as a virtual global library card with a relatively expensive add-on paging & delivery system; expanding any direct reciprocal borrowing program seems a good idea all around.

So I feel it's worth asking:
Can we use the ILL system like consortia circulation borrowing system?
Basic authorization, accouting, and even tracking systems can help us approve and enable direct borrowing of users, provided the ILL system were tweaked a bit. If so, we might expand the idea of ILL to include visiting circulation services.

What do you think? Shall we expand our ideas of ILL to enable direct & convenient resource sharing? Shall we make this our cooperative 2008 resolution?

Distance Education ILL Service

One of the most interesting challenges to the effectiveness of Library Services is Distance Education or remote user services. Not surprisingly, we have to see this as an opportunity to think outside the box, and think outside we must. I have on several presentation used a skit to show how the hold for pickup model for Interlibrary Services doesn't quite cut it for many users, and in the case of remote users, the double delivery dilemma (3Ds) makes even less sense. 3Ds means we borrow a book from another Library, handle it and re-ship it to our user's home; when they re-ship it to us, we re-handle it, and re-ship it to the lending Library (make sense??)

This makes services like Denmark's Books To Your Doorstep, and pilot's like OCLC's Montana Worldcat Delivery so important to consider. However, it isn't just a case where direct borrowing or Direct Delivery makes sense, in fact, we found that sometimes the numbers tell a different tale. Angie T. at UVa Library helped us look at our DE ILL requests, and we found that for about 6% of our requests that could be purchased - could be purchased for only $1 and rush shipped for less than $4. So, do we treat this as an ILL borrow, or an ILL copy - we purchase the book for the user. Interestingly enough, several colleagues have said this idea doesn't quite sound right; first because of procurement policies, and the other is a disdain for purchasing books for users (a format thing we have - ILL can pay up to $60 per article (lender fee + copyright)) and just giving it away... Good news, our Procurement Office has said it's OK, because it makes economic sense - and so we can test and compare cost, speed, and customer satisfaction.

So, what are we to do with the idea of purchasing books for our users? Comments/Suggestions?

The added irony of this idea is in the testing, I purchased several $1 books for myself to evaluate what dollar books in "good condition" really meant. In most cases, they were Library withdraws and many from Better World books. Is this resource sharing with a third party vendor?

More on this soon.