new Google Books glitch

[Dave Wilton]

I've found instances when searching within a particular volume where Google
Books provides hits from entirely different books.

Google Books has gotten so untrustworthy that I now only use it to search
works for which "full view" is available. The snippet view is essentially
useless because you cannot trust that the result is anything close to
accurate without verifying it against the entire volume.

(It also doesn't help that the number of books available with "full view"
here in Canada is significantly fewer than the number available to those
searching from the States.)


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
Joel S. Berson
Sent: Wednesday, March 28, 2012 7:40 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: new Google Books glitch

I have the impression I'm seeing more false positives than earlier, but I
don't have solid evidence.

But that's with (Advanced) Search.  I've not seen anything like Jon's Search
Within a Book "glitch" ("phosphorus").  Except, of course, when a Google
"volume" contains several different books.  (Not the case for the Melville,
unless something is buried within it!)

At 3/28/2012 06:40 AM, Shapiro, Fred wrote:
>Actually, when I go into Advanced Book Search and run searches that I
>have run many times in the past, it looks like it is behaving much the
>same as it has.
>
>Fred Shapiro

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