Searchers will be able to view the title page, the copyright page, the table of contents, and a substantial slice of context while adhering to the 20 percent cap. Hence verifying dates and ascertaining author identities will be easier.

The current irritating flaws in GBS can be evaluated in the framework of its remarkable power and its ongoing evolution I think. Regarding the propensity to “take shortcuts”; I think that private companies, public companies, non-profit companies, and governments of every variety sometimes take shortcuts. As your last sentence suggests it is a poor idea to depend on one sector or institution alone.

Ultimately people should be able to see full library e-books from home and should be able to download them. I think we agree on this. You have been admirably, presciently, and articulately enunciating this for many years.

Thanks,
David
(thoroughly sold on the use of the Schulberg example)

Here is an opportunity to illustrate some of the ways in which GBS is not the comprehensive library tool that our society should have. It is a potent and flawed instrument in its current incarnation.

The metadata supplied by GBS is sometimes frustratingly inaccurate. For example you mention that “crapola” had a “1939 usage in a story by Whit Burnett in Story Magazine”. However, Whit Burnett was the founder and editor of Story magazine, and this means that he probably did not write the piece that contains the word “crapola”. The snippet that Google displays does not even show the target word. This cropping problem is common with GBS snippets, and it makes verification more difficult.

Many times the dates given by GBS for magazines and journals are inaccurate. Often GBS gives the founding date of a magazine and that is irrelevant when the precise issue date is desired. Sometimes GBS gives the start date of a volume that contains a multi-month or multi-year span of magazine issues. Story magazine was founded in 1931 according to Wikipedia, so the 1939 date might be accurate, but the absurdly restrictive snippet view does not allow one to see the title page. Also the contents page data is cropped with “14 other sections not shown”.

The Richard Brinsley Sheridan reference cannot be double-checked at all because the message “Sorry, this page’s content is restricted” is displayed when further exploration is attempted. GBS finds the term “crapola” in numerous Italian language works of the 1800s and 1700s. I do not know what the word means in Italian. Seeing context is important because the word might appear in a non-English phrase with an alternative denotation.

I decided to present the citation within “What Makes Sammy Run” because I knew that the novel had a high cultural impact. As you suggest “on the written page, the Schulberg use may have counted the most.” Of course it is possible that there is an earlier influential use.

G: Why, of course—Google Book Search, duh! Many thanks for the find. As it happens, What Makes Sammy Run? is among my favorite novels, but I didn’t recall seeing The Word there. By the way, GBS revealed a 1939 usage in a story by Whit Burnett in Story Magazine and apparently even an earlier example from Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s 1935 book Heavenly Hell (alas, the long URL somehow won’t paste in). And there may be older ones. But on the written page, the Schulberg use may have counted the most.

Paula: Nice hearing from you. I remain a big fan of The Writing Show and was sorry to hear of the heart attack of commentator Jeff DeRego. Open heart surgery, too, just like me? Ouch! I thought I’d used up the current quota for those things among Net-lovin’ writers. But then I see Jeff beat me to it. If he does have a fund to help pay medical expenses—that’s my possibly incorrect recollection—please pass on the details for TeleBlog readers. I enjoyed his dissection of NaNoWriMo, by the way. Wish I’d seen it before I did mine; I’d have linked.

Brian: I agree with PaulB. If the matter is crucial, you of course want more than one source—maybe many. Although zillions of books are full of crapola, especially obsolete information, the medium as a whole is probably more trustworthy than the Web. Lots of exceptions! But librarians are at least supposed to care about accuracy and the rest.

RJH: Interesting idea, although I would like to know the credentials of the participants (just one factor!).

Thanks,
David

Regarding “crapola” here is some data from the open web. The word is used by Sammy Glick the anti-hero or villain of the 1941 novel ”What Makes Sammy Run?” by Budd Schulberg. The “corrosive Hollywood novel” was a “runaway best seller” according to a New York Times article from 1998. The work was turned into television programs in 1949 and 1959. It was even made into a Broadway musical in 1964 that was revived in 2006. However, I do not know if the term “crapola” was used in any of these productions.

The high-profile novel arguably placed the word “crapola” into the acceptable entertainment lexicon for some readers and writers. “All in the Family” premiered on the CBS television network in 1971. Admittedly, a top-ranked television sitcom probably has a wider reach and a more visceral impact than a bestselling novel.

How accurate is this data? Does it come from credible sources acceptable to OCLC, Syracuse University, and the University of Washington? Who knows? The existence of the word “crapola” in “What Makes Sammy Run?” can be checked with Google Book Search. The New York Times quotes are from an article titled “’41 Best Seller Is Back and Clawing” by Ralph Blumenthal dated August 11, 1998. The television and Broadway production dates are from Wikipedia.

There are discrepancies. Blumenthal in the Times says “a television version of the book was broadcast in two parts by NBC in 1960.” Wikipedia says “On September 27 and October 4, 1959, on NBC Sunday Showcase, Larry Blyden starred as Sammy Glick in a two-part television broadcast on NBC-TV.” In this case I think Wikipedia is more accurate than the New York Times.

Librarians aren’t perfect, but most of us* will tell you that you should never rely on just one source…or even two. And no two librarians approach a question the same way. So I think the more options that are available to us, the better chance we have of getting a satisfactory answer to our question.

*I haven’t worked in a library in a long time, but I do have an MLS and have worked the reference desk in a variety of libraries.

Of course, not everybody using del.icio.us is a librarian, but they are often experts or active participants in the topics they bookmark (which is better IMHO).

Would a librarian stand up and say “we will not purchase any books for our collection that are not thoroughly vetted for factual accuracy by a special committee of librarians”? If not, how are web-based sources any different?