Martin Hollick over at Slovak Yankee had a post recently
expressing his frustration with Google Books, which had me thinking about the nature of Google Books and what it can and can't do for us as researchers. I am, after all, one of those blogging internet genealogists who raves about Google Books. That doesn't mean, however, that I am unaware of its limitations; merely that I find its benefits outweigh its deficiencies, making it a useful site despite the shortcomings.
Complicated Searching
Martin's complaint, as I read it, was twofold: 1) A public domain work which he was searching for was not available on Google Books, and 2) Navigation within Google Books is unnecessarily opaque.
On point two, I believe Martin is undoubtedly correct. It is a run around chore to find out what, exactly, Google Books has online in what sort of view (full, snippet, partial, no), in which edition, and which volume. I wonder at times why Google has invested the time, money and effort of their own company (as well as that of libraries around the world) to create this resource, which is then handicapped by a sub-par search interface and a complete lack of taxonomical organization. Even using Google Books'
Advanced Search to cut through the clicks, it recently took me almost two hours to wade through search results and editions information to compile a list of
Hubert Howe Bancroft's works that are available on the site.
In an echo of Martin's experience, I was frustrated to find that of the thirty-nine volumes of Bancroft's collected works, three of the ones I am most interested in are (yet?) to be released in full-view, despite the fact that they are in the public domain. It also leaves what could be a valuable reference resource (a full volume-set of Bancroft's works) full of holes. This, of course, leads to questions: Why should some volumes of Bancroft's collected works not be available, when other volumes of the work (all in the same edition) are presented not once, not twice, but three times under different ID numbers, and therefore as separate results in a given search? Where is the redundancy control? Is anyone anywhere within the digitization effort trying to ensure that complete sets of works get digitized? What is the system for prioritizing the volumes to be digitized, and if, as I assume, it resides with the libraries, is there any centralization to ensure that duplication is not taking up valuable digitization resources?
It is this--the sometimes chaotic and seemingly untamed
sprawl of Google Books--which renders it vast but wild, and sometimes frustrating to use. On these points, Martin's criticisms seem, to me, appropriate.
Better Use
Of course, with such a plethora of information, it is easy to expect Google Books to have everything,
especially what we are looking for, whenever we want it. The thrust and thrill of research demands optimism that what we set out to find will yield in the end. Yet experience shows that even as digitization efforts continue, Google Books isn't always the best choice when our research directs us to a particular work (or even a particular edition of a particular work), since it is not yet the broad clearinghouse of human publishing history that it aims to be. Often, as Martin invokes, a visit to a flesh and blood library is mandated.
To assume that Google Books replaces a library is as incorrect as assuming that Google Books has set out to BE a library in the first place. The ends and means--and even usage--of Google Books can be completely
different than that of a library, as the cascade of interactions with both entities, though beginning in the same place (the need for information), succeed in different ways and toward different satisfactory endings. Google Book's strength lies
not in emulating a library, but in altering the interaction with information that is found in books.
In a library: What I require is a way to find the volume I need, have it sent via ILL to my local branch (if necessary), then check it out and read it. The library's purpose is to either house the volume or provide a conduit of service which will allow me to access another institution's copy. They have to provide a searchable interface for their own collection that allows me to find what they have available. And they provide the invaluable service of librarians who can augment my research with suggestions for other resources. Beyond that, my interaction with the information I need, in the book I want, is a straight-forward one, wherein the search leads to a nose-in-book ending.
On Google Books: The mode of interaction here
can replicate that of a library, if I locate the volume I want, then download it and read it on my Kindle, (which is one way I use Google Books). In this way, the site has served dually as a library by housing the volume and providing a (perhaps poorly organized) catalog, and is little more than digital delivery service.
The difference--and the strength--of Google Books is that it allows interaction beyond this traditional library > catalog > user triptych by presenting the information within books in a more multi-dimensional way. In this sense, Google Books serves not as an electronic bookshelf, but as a true spinoff of its greater search cousin: a database of published information that breaks out of the traditional bindings of books.
Fruits of the Search
In my search for Volume VI of Bancroft's
History of California, Google Books fell short. All I wanted, in this case, was to have the complete volume to read. In other situations, where my search is more general, I have found the ability to search "outside of the binding" to be invaluable, in that it allows me to find information in places I almost never would have thought to look, or in books which I would have had myriad problems obtaining. (This holds true particularly for 19th-century research, for which Google Books holds a wealth of public domain works). Examples of items I have found include:
* A beautiful illustrated advertisement for a GGG-Grandfather's architectural offices, found in a Catholic Laity Almanac.
* Information on a letter written by the same GGG-Grandfather which was at the root of a Supreme Court case in 1858; this was in a rather arcane publication about the railroad involved in the suit.
* A letter written by a G-Grandfather about his son's WWI service in France was read aloud at a Congressional hearing in 1923. Google Books had a snippet view result showing his name and residence, which allowed me to order the book through ILL and obtain the full testimony read before the committee.
* Various South Carolina governmental reports, as well as post-Civil War shipping industry publications have allowed me to piece together a list of vessels captained by a GGG-Grandfather.
Etc.
Certainly I could have found many of these books independently of the internet, if I had wandered into a repository which housed them, thought of pulling them off the shelf, then sat down and paged through them, page after page after page. Realistically, though, most of these items were nuggets residing silently within the pages of books I never would have dreamed of touching or books which are in places I may never be lucky enough to go. The digital database that is Google Books makes discoveries like this possible, enhancing my research and my understanding of the individuals I am pursuing.
"In California the happy New Year comes without the wishing. Balmy air, golden sunshine, refreshing showers, pleasant odors, verdant landscape, and attractive blossoms, charm the eye and please the senses, leaving no yearning for a happier New Year, if the physician is absorbed in his calling, for he will be deriving sufficient pleasure from its study to supply all other lackings."
"A California Christmas is all good. The earth rejoices, the skies give thanks and are glad. We do not have to be happy between shivers, nor imprison ourselves lest Nature slay us. All is joyous together. The rains have come, and with them the Resurrection. There are new heavens and a new earth; a turquoise arch above an emerald floor. The birds can keep Christmas, too--and a winter which even a goose has too much sense to inhabit is not fit for christians.
"I will give you a little story of two Christmas days in Los Angeles. One the first of these Christmas days, I have reason to believe, was held the first Christmas tree ever prepared in Southern California. In 1857 Los Angeles could boast of but a limited residence section. The plaza formed the center of the city. North of it were the adobe homes of the native Californian population, while south of it were the few business houses of that date and the homes of the American residents. Los Angeles street marked the eastern boundary, and beyond large vineyards and orchards extended toward the Los Angeles river. First street, open only to Main, marked the southern limit of population, except, perhaps, a few homes just the other side of it.
"A thick haze veiled the horizon and rendered the sunset less pleasing than we had expected to find it. A hurried walk of an hour in the twilight brought us to a small mining camp called Whiskey Diggings where we found good accommodations for the night, and to our surprise, found it a very quiet, sober place in spite of its suggestive name. I learned that the peculiar name of the camp originated as follows: Three Irishmen went there two or three years before from an adjacent mining camp to prospect, taking a bottle of whiskey with them, and returned drunk and reported that they had discovered not gold but "whiskey diggings," and the place was ever afterward called by that name."
"We stopped for a night at the hospitable mansion of Mr. Yount. This old man had led an adventurous and chequered life, in the course of which he had fought under Jackson at New Orleans, and in the Seminole war, had been taken prisoner by the Indians, and actually bound to the stake. He had been a hunter and trapper, and Indian fighter at large, in the heart of the continent, until his combative propensities were gratified--and he finally found himself one day at the "jumping-off place," and made his first attempt at ocean navigation on the bosom of the broad Pacific. In the unpretending skiff of an otter-hunter, often unaccompanied save by his trusty rifle, he coasted the shores and islands of California, in search of the pelt of his valuable prey. 
According to the drama, Samuel Orchart Beeton was a swaggering young man, known for gambling and the enjoyment of women; the photo to the left shows the young man in 1854. A braggart entrepreneur, he was brash and a risk-taker. Apparently, Isabella's father-in-law initially forbade the marriage; even when the nuptials did finally take place in 1856, he refused to attend the ceremony. The marriage was registered in the 3rd quarter of 1856.
"At four PM, on board the "New World" steamer for Sacramento, en route to the mountains. A great crowd on board, smoking and spitting everywhere-one cannot walk in the saloon without kicking over "spittoons" as the receiver is called, the very sight of which invites a discharge from an American mouth. Supper on board--tea, coffee, cakes and bread; a steak at one end of the table, innumerable small dishes up and down the sides, holding--some one meat-chop, some a small fish each, a perch for instance, others contain one slice of ham, others again two baked potatoes, and so on; these dishes are cleared with a very natural rapidity, and the less energetic gentleman must be contented with bread and butter; for this, one dollar and a half is paid."
"The Recorder's Court often affords much amusement to the idle vagabonds who are fortunate enough to avoid its jurisdiction. The following are specimens of cases before the "Honourable" the Recorder, who bears a title in spite of the republican repudiation of such things.
"The farmers have set up a wail here and described the difficulties they have had down in these valleys in establishing homes. The miners themselves, many of them, have sailed clear around the horn, and many of them have been balanced upon the point of a horn ever since, in an honest endeavor all the time to find something that would add to the wealth of the State, and certainly they have succeeded, because I see that during the year eighteen hundred and seventy-seven they have produced nearly nineteen million of dollars; and yet these learned statesmen want to go to work and impose this onerous tax upon the men who are endeavoring to bring this wealth to the surface. It is the only industry to-day in this State which pays to the laboring men three dollars and four dollars a day. In my county the ruling rate is four dollars a day for miners. Now the laboring men cut up so about wages down in San Francisco that they have got the wages down to nothing. The only men who pay them full wages in this State are the miners, and yet the Workingmen stand up here and vote to tax them out of existence, and prevent the organization of companies which will pay them better wages than they can get in any other place."
"The grizzly did so much damage to the farms, and besides, he furnished so much meat, he was industriously hunted for years, until his numbers are greatly reduced. His food is largely vegetable, though he is fond of fresh meat of nearly every sort, and especially of fresh pork. The cub is easily tamed, and is most playful and amusing; he can be taught many clever tricks. The meat of the cub is tender, and like young pork, but that of an old bear is very strong, so much so as to be scarcely palatable."
The Panic of 1873 is a particularly interesting research topic* as it came at such a dynamic time for the United States: society was shaking off the ills of the Civil War, Reconstruction was under way, expansion in the West was in full-force, and the economies of the Eastern seaboard were trying to bloom into their full industrial potential. Businesses were being born, and people were on the move. Optimism in the newly reunited country was high, and the potential for individual and national success seemed unlimited. Then calamity struck, and struck hard. 
One party working actively in California in the years following the panic was the Workingman's Party led by the vociferous and provocative Dennis Kearney. This urban movement was characterized by a strong foment on the part of the labor class, along with a denunciation of the monied and propertied echelons of society and the bearer of all capitalist evil: the railroads. The party also soon began to cave to xenophobic tendencies, captured in the mantra "Chinese Must Go":
Similar agitations for change were occurring in rural parts of California, where farmers were aggregating to discuss grievances under the auspices of a movement known as The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, or "The Grange". This fraternal order became a political organization of powerful momentum, which took on what farmers saw as two major evils: the excessive rates for freight charged by the tyrannical railroads, and the profligate expenditures of government6.