Thursday, September 23, 2004

Amazon/Google/WorldCat. The switched-on librarians have been having a bit of a hackfest today. Jessamyn West and Andrea Mercado got to wondering how to make use of the integration between Google and OCLC WorldCat ("a worldwide union catalog created and maintained collectively by more than 9,000 member institutions.") They discovered that if you construct a Google query using site:worldcatlibraries.org plus an ISBN, you'll find WorldCat records for the book. For example, this query returns this link, which is the WorldCat record for Bruce Schneier's Secrets and Lies. If you follow that link and fill in a ZIP code (WorldCat will remember it for you), you'll see all the nearby libraries that have the book, and you can check its availability at each library. ... [Jon's Radio] 8:55:24 PM      Google It!.

Google Local Launched In Canada [Slashdot:] 8:52:40 PM      Google It!.

Searching texts in the Google Print project. Google Print is Google's ambitious project to provide free online full-text Google searches of selected print and non-OA content. In yesterday's ResearchBuzz, Tara Calishain harnessed little-known Google syntax for running searches on Google Print books and journals. She even created a search box to run these searches for you (run one and study the syntax to see how to do it yourself) and bookmarklets to create Google Alerts based on the searches. [Open Access News] 8:22:57 AM      Google It!.