Isn't the whole point of this to get the user to the book?  Knowledge
about the book should/will come from research and reading, not bad
metadata...  or even hastily automated extraneous info...  and in fact,
I'd say that most MARC metadata is only there to get a user to the book,
not to describe it to the user (aside from subjects), but mainly to
describe it to the library.

That said, I showed an example
(http://books.google.com/books?id=kdiYGQAACAAJ) in which a Google Books
"no view" gets a user to a "full view", completely electronically!
(though, my goodness, in the state it's in now it does require
experimentation and two extra mouse clicks)

What's more, Google already has a link for every book to Worldcat, which
helps the user get to a "full view", completely physically.  Ideally,
researchers will begin to have more and more opportunities to research
texts side-by-side with a physical and an electronic copy.  That is, of
course, once they have more options to download different formats rather
than just the rather large PDFs currently available at Google.

Right now, yes, most "no view" options offer far less information to a
user who can read a MARC record...  but I'd presume that as more texts
go online, the more value and richness will be added, even to those "no
view" cases.

Mark Custer


-----Original Message-----
From: Code for Libraries [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
Tim Spalding
Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 11:44 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [CODE4LIB] coverage of google book viewability API

> Most of our users will start out in an electronic environment whether
we like it or not
> (most of us on THIS list like it)---and will decide,  based on what
they
> find there, on their own, without us making the decision for
> them---whether to obtain (or attempt to obtain) a copy of the physical
> book or not. Whether we like it or not.

>But if you think the options are between US deciding whether the user
should consult a physical book or not---then we're not even playing the
same game.

What I dislike here is your abnegation of the responsibility to care
about the choices students make. If you're not considering the value
of all resources-including the book-you're not playing the library
game, the educator game or the Google game. You're just throwing stuff
on screens because you can.

"Whether you like it or not" you're pointing students in some
directions and not others. You're giving these resources different
amounts of emphasis in your UI. You're including some and not
others-the others includes all other web pages and all other offline
resources. You aren't making choices for the user, but you're not
stepping back and washing your hands of the responsibility to help the
student.

In a physical-book context, the book is one of the resources. It
deserves to weighted and evaluated within this larger set of choices.
It's your responsibility to consider it within the mix of options. If
the book is excellent and the online resources poor, helping the user
means communicating this. So, sometimes the OPAC should basically say
"there's nothing good online about this book; but it's on the shelf
right over there."

*Certainly in Classics that's still true-the online world is a very
impoverished window into the discipline.