Google Books errors may indicate large changes

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Ben Zimmer wrote:
> It looks like the GB engineers have fixed the URLs that Garson noted
> were broken.

Thanks for looking into this, Ben. I just performed several of the
same searches that caused the 404 errors and now the 404 errors are
absent. Thanks also to the Google folks.
Garson

> 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

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