Saturday, November 29, 2008

Have you "Google Booked" lately?

Are you like me, "I will Google Book when I have time!"?

So, the other day when I wrote a blog about the Manitoba Genealogical Society <http://genealogycanada.blogspot.com/2008/11/manitoba-genealogical-society-website.html>, I took the time to explore Google Book, as it has been a while since I had done so.

I went to Google Book <www.google.ca/books> and in the Search Box I put the title of the book I wanted to read as "History of Kings County, Nova Scotia" and pressed the button, and there it was - completely scanned!

The first thing I noticed was the number (variety) of books that Google now has for genealogists and family historians to read at their leisure.

They say that they now have 7-million books in which they put the fullview - the full text of the book - every page, including Table of Contents and Indexes - online. And this list included the book that I looked at, much to my pleasant surprise.

They also have a limited preview of the books, which means that the line in which the name you want to research is highlighted, but you can get them at the library or at bookstores which are mentioned on the side of the page by Google.

Google Book started in 2004, but last fall they really put a push on to have as many books as possibly scanned and put on the Internet - and I am glad they did!