Google Books and WorldCat: a comparison of their content
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/14684521211254031 |
| Date | 03 August 2012 |
| Published date | 03 August 2012 |
| Pages | 507-516 |
| Author | Xiaotian Chen |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Google Books and WorldCat:
a comparison of their content
Xiaotian Chen
Cullom-Davis Library, Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, USA
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to compare Google Books with WorldCat and to assess some
other functionalities of Google Books.
Design/methodology/approach – Over 500 random samples generated from WorldCat were
searched on Google Books. The search results were used to compare the coverage between Google
Books and WorldCat, to estimate the successful link rate to a local library catalogue, the percentage
available as full view, snippet, and preview on Google Books, and other services of Google Books.
Findings – Google Books can retrieve almost all the books catalogued in WorldCat. Its “Find in a
library” link to a local library catalogue works 75 percent of the time. Fewer than 10 percent of Google
Books items have free full views, and about 15 percent have snippets and previews, respectively.
Previews are much more useful than snippets. Google Books probably indexes books that it does not
possess in digital form, in addition to indexing all the books that it has acquired in digital form.
Originality/value – No previous empirical studies of this kind have been found. This study assesses
Google Books’ coverage and services with quantitative measures.
Keywords Google Books,Google Books coverage, WorldCat, Digitallibraries, Online catalogues
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
The content of Google Books (http://books.google.com/) is growing rapidly as it scans
more and more books and adds more and more bibliographic records from libraries
and publishers. It aimed to complete scanning the books of the University of Michigan
Library (www.lib.umich.edu/michigan-digitization-project), one of its earliest library
partners which allows Google Books to scan all its books, in 2011 ( Jones, 2010).
Google Books’ library partners are all over the world, but are predominantly from
English-speaking and other Western European-language countries; Keio University
Library in Japan was the only library partner from a country using non-Roman script
as of December 2010 (www.google.com/googlebooks/partners.html).
Librarians, readers, and other kinds of searchers would be interested in knowing
how comprehensive Google Books’ coverage is when they use Google Books as a tool to
look for books.
This study uses random sample records from WorldCat to search Google Books in
order to compare its coverage with that of WorldCat, to measure its progress, and to set
up a historical base for future empirical studies of Google Books. It also explores the
possibility of Google Books becoming more useful than local library catalogues and
union catalogues such as WorldCat as a starting place for finding books.
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/1468-4527.htm
The author is grateful to Alice Chen of Duke University and Ellie Hansen of Bradley University
(Emeritus) for editing this paper.
Google Books
and WorldCat
507
Received 2 March 2011
Accepted 27 August 2011
Online Information Review
Vol. 36 No. 4, 2012
pp. 507-516
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
1468-4527
DOI 10.1108/14684521211254031
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