Journal Entry #5

Google Book Search is a tool from Google that searches the full text of books that Google scans and stores in its digital database. This kind of tool once open to the general public, would either spread like wildfire or quickly diminish. Google's relationship with publisher's I believe would grow because the service only publishes books in there full content only if the publisher agrees. Otherwise, they take what they call "snippets" from books thats copyright date have expired and uses them as a reference whenever someone "googles" that books title. Having such a tool, Google is know reigning as the king of all search engines to date. But other search engines such as Yahoo are trying to keep up with Google by making similar tools. This project will become a great reference tool to many. An example of a group of people that this would help out are students. It will become a great studying tool for them. But they have to know the limits of it. If they copy, it is plaguarizing. With this new development, librarians would not need to worry. Many of the books that are on Google Book Search are not copyrighted anymore. So Google saw this as an oppurtunity to create their own little library so to speak. But they are many books that do not appear on the sight including "Harry Potter", "To Kill A Mockingbird" etc. These types of books are what people go to the library for. So if i were a librarian, I would not worry because with the vast variety of books being published daily, there will always be a new book that Google would not be able to put on their website. In conclusion, i think that Google Book Search is a wonderful, helpful tool that can help many people on a daily basis.