I've never really thought of using Google books on a Pathfinder. At the university level, we teach our students that Google books are available, but students may not have access to the entire book. I am of two minds about this. On one hand, it really does have the potential to expand your collection without the support of a budget. On the other hand, how much are we really expanding collections if we only have access to parts of a book. Also, what are we teaching our kids, by telling them it is o.k. to only have access to partial information? Will they ignore a relevant pathfinder source that is in print in favor of one on the web?
Other sources that I think could be utilized in lieu of, or in conjunction with, Google Books could be Project Gutenburg (albeit older books), Library of Congress (also historical), state library consortium's access to digital books (Maryland Digital Library), and possibly college or university libraries. I'm not anti-Google books, but I think we also need to take a close look at the drawbacks of using them and explain those to our students.
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Megan - point well taken. As with all resources provided for our students, some are better than others. I think it always goes back to the learning objective and the informational need. I'm not sure that not having a complete book on a certain topic is necessarily a negative. Especially if only certain sections of the book are needed for the informational need and those are the sections that have been digitized. As Buffy stated in her presentation, she uses the research pathfinders to help support her students finding those tourist attractions. She is making the selections knowing that the resource will make the student successful in their information journey.
ReplyDeleteI like your rationale on this topic. In one of my classes last semester, we had several people who were extremely vocal who thought Google = the devil. They made a lot of good points on intellectual property and the negative way Google is going about their digitization project. Putting the entire ethical issue aside for the moment, I wouldn't argue against Google Books if they had the ability to expand reading opportunities for people who otherwise wouldn't have those, but since many are partial books, I agree with you that it is largely ineffective. As for using Google Books on pathfinders, I think until the entire text is up that this is an unwise idea overall. However, as Brenda pointed out, if the information needed is completely there and in context, I have to concede that it makes sense. I like your alternative suggestions.
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