Google Books errors may indicate large changes

[Ben Zimmer]

It looks like the GB engineers have fixed the URLs that Garson noted
were broken.

--bgz


On Sun, Oct 14, 2012 at 7:58 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>
> I reported this to a contact at Google Books, who says: "The engineers
> are tracking it down. It's definitely not related to the settlement or
> anything legal or policy related; just a bug."
>
> On Sat, Oct 13, 2012 at 7:23 PM, ADSGarson O'Toole wrote:
> >
> > While searching the Google Books database in recent days I have
> > encountered a large number of 404 errors. Here is a sample error
> > message:
> >
> > 404. That’s an error.
> > The requested URL << long URL name excised by me >> was not found on
> > this server. That’s all we know.
> >
> > For example, a single search produced links with the following names.
> > All these links led to 404 errors, i.e., dead ends.
> >
> > EEI bulletin - Volume 27 - Page 213
> > The Journal of the Florida Medical Association - Volume 47, Part 2 -
> > Page
> > 922
> > Protection - Volumes 81-82 - Page 213
> > Typo graphic - Page 85
> > St. Thomas's Hospital gazette - Volume 53 - Page 89
> > Telephone engineer and management - Volume 57 - Page 55
> >
> > Google is either reorganizing their database index or removing a large
> > number of periodicals. This might be a manifestation of the
> > undisclosed provisions of the agreement between Google and publishers.
> >
> > Garson
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 5, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Victor Steinbok wrote:
> > >
> > > More at the link:
> > >
> > > http://goo.gl/AHrpP
> > > The Association of American Publishers (AAP) and Google officially
> > > laid
> > > down their arms on Thursday, ending a seven-year legal war with a
> > > peace
> > > agreement that both parties plan to keep sealed from the public and
> > > the
> > > courts.
> > > The AAP first sued Google in fall 2005, a year after it announced
> > > Google
> > > Book Search (also known as Google Books), a project the company had
> > > jump-started by scanning hundreds of thousands of books from the
> > > shelves
> > > of university libraries without seeking permission from the publishers
> > > or the authors. The publishers and authors teamed up to file a class
> > > action against Google and, after years of negotiating, agreed on a
> > > settlement -- only to have a judge reject it last year.
> > > Thursday’s agreement does not involve the Authors Guild, which is now
> > > engaged in separate litigation with Google, nor does it require court
> > > approval or public disclosure.

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org