What is Google Book Searchs role in the future of libraries?
We hope that Google Book Search will become a valuable tool in libraries, and the stories we’re hearing from librarians are promising. We’ve seen GBS used regularly in two ways in libraries: one, librarians help patrons by virtue of being able to access books that aren’t held in their collection, without having to go through the delay of Interlibrary Loan, and two, full-text search of the books makes a library’s existing collection more valuable because it’s much, much easier to find a topic buried in a book that’s not immediately obvious from a search of the OPAC. How is GBS changing physical library spaces? Well, in a sense it allows a library with a small collection to take advantage of much larger collections without needing to devote extra physical space to the books themselves. I think that in general libraries are becoming more digital – by that I mean that electronic resources and tools are as ensconced in a library as any other traditional form of research or reference. But it
Related Questions
- Google has been working with libraries already through its Book Search project. How will this agreement impact its current and future partnerships?
- What does this mean for the libraries participation in the Google Book Search project going forward?
- What is Google Book Searchs role in the future of libraries?
