Thursday, June 18, 2009
Books / Teh Internets New In Google Books
Posted by Paul Constant on Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 4:00 PM
TechCrunch (by way of The Proverbial Lone Wolf Librarian's Weblog) reports that Google Books has added a whole bunch of features. Some of the new changes include the ability to turn a book into plain text (if the font the book was published in is especially awful, which happens a lot with older editions), the ability to clip and publish certain portions of books on a website or blog, or the ability to embed a whole book, YouTube-style, into a website or blog:
I think this embedding function could be a very useful thing, especially if you want to quote from copyright-free works.
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1
"which happens a lot with older editions" -- say what? Older books tend to have beautiful typefaces, beautifully laid down on the paper. It's shit-assed modern books that are usually uglier than eczema. Actually, they're getting better; the worst of the worst were the early computer-printed books from the mid-eighties. Oh, my god, horrible, jaggies, hemmorhoidal font choices, inside-margin page numbers....
2
wait i thought you (and every other indy bookstore perusing person) hated google books.
it's so confusing to keep track of what you're supposed to hate to be cool now a days!
it's so confusing to keep track of what you're supposed to hate to be cool now a days!
3
Google copies of books that are beyond copyright - good.
Google copies of books that have still-living authors and are within the 17-year period granted in the original US Constitution - bad.
Any questions?
Google copies of books that have still-living authors and are within the 17-year period granted in the original US Constitution - bad.
Any questions?
4
Thanks...great technology if I ever have the desire to peruse a Whaling digest from 1789 or any of the other "great works" that have escaped the claws of the egregious US Copyright laws.
Thanks...great technology if I ever have the desire to peruse a Whaling digest from 1789 or any of the other "great works" that have escaped the claws of the egregious US Copyright laws.
5
I love Google Books so much. And Google Scholar. Books more than Scholar, 'cause a lot of more scholarship is poop than books.
6
Google Scholar is my favorite, but why in the world does Google "protect" science by keeping most of it behind ridiculous paid barriers, when they reproduce entire books?
There will be a scientific renaissance when something like Google Books exists for current scientific articles. It's so sad and even immoral that you have to work for a major university that can afford tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars every month so you can access current science.
There will be a scientific renaissance when something like Google Books exists for current scientific articles. It's so sad and even immoral that you have to work for a major university that can afford tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars every month so you can access current science.
7
Using Google Chrome I opened my Google Reader to find this post with an embedded Google Book and discussion about Google Scholar.
Google is doing quite well.
Google is doing quite well.
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