i-Conference 2006:Google Book Search at U-M

Maybe you've heard of the B-schools (business schools), but have you heard of iSchools (information schools)? Perhaps the B-schools had something to do with the name, but maybe the iPod had something to do with it, too.

Today, i-Conference 2006 (iCon) begins at the University of Michigan (U-M). In a few hours, iCon will open officially, but a pre-conference session about the "U-M Digital Library Initiatives and the Google Book Search Project" has just begun, with speakers John Wilkin and Perry Willett.
Create Your Own!

Wilkin started by talking about the genesis of Google Book Search at U-M, and eventually got around to the secrecy regarding the technology and numbers surrounding the project. He mentioned that he understood why Google wants to keep these secret, but added that permission has been obtained to talk about certain aspects of the project.

The target is to digitize 7 million volumes in 6 years. They are now processing 30,000 volumes in a week, which is not atypical. Before Google became involved, they were processing 9,000 volumes—in one year.

Willett is now walking us through the back-and-forth involved between U-M and Google, and showing us how the books digitized may be accessed through Google Book Search and U-M's Mirlyn catalog, whether in full text, as a downloadable file, or identifying how many times a word appears in a book. The most striking thing is that Google and U-M provide different ways of searching books from the U-M collection.

For more information about Google Book Search at U-M, see "Michigan Digitization Project" and "Google Library Partnership."


Category: i-Conference 2006