Using Google “Books” for Postal (and Other) History Research

Bob Swanson

03/02/09

Introduction

Historical studies have become easier to perform, now that the large search engines are available to find information on the World Wide Web (WWW). One of the major search engine companies is Google, whose website offers a variety of search capabilities.

In recent years, Google has initiated a project to scan and catalog books from libraries all over the world. The scanning process has included keyword creation, so that these books can be searched, just as you would search the web for information. If you have access to a web browser and the Internet, you should be able to perform the types of searches described in this document. If you wish to print any search results, you should, of course have a printer attached to your computer. No other special equipment or software should be required.

On a personal note, the presence of the Web (and Google) have revolutionized the degree of research that I can perform for my WW I book. When I was preparing the book in the 1990's, most historical information was only available in printed form, often stored in only a few places in the world. Now, many local historical societies in the United States have their own websites, much government material is on-line, and on-line encyclopedias offer information: the wealth of information available is amazing. Any future research that I perform will be greatly improved by using on-line search tools, such as Google.

Google Books Example

To get a taste of the capability, go to the website:

http://books.google.com

The web page will look something like:

The main search box (right after the Google logo) allows you to enter keywords for book searching.

First Search

Your interests will vary, of course, but for this demonstration, we will look for machine cancels. We've entered the keywords “machine cancels” into the search box.

When we click “Search Books”, the machinery at Google goes into action. Once the search is complete, we will be sent to a new page. The next image shows that page with some of the books that Google has found.

As with any Google search, the books are listed in the order that Google thinks is “important”. There are many pages of results available for this simple search. If you are interested in an in-depth study of the possibilities, be sure to view as many search result pages as you can.

Each entry contains the title of the book and page reference, if any. This name is a link to more information about the book, as well as any viewable contents.

Notice the term “Snippet View” on the first reference. This means that Google will only show you small parts of the book, with highlighting of the sentences containing the search terms. At the least, viewing the part of the book of interest should be helpful and show you the context where the search terms were found. The publisher of the book has not allowed viewing of book sections.

The next entry, my book on First World War facilities, indicates “Limited Preview”. This means that the publisher (me) has allowed viewers to see pages and partial pages of the book, in order to help them decide if they want to purchase it. When you view this book on Google, you will see a few parts of the book, and not be restricted to viewing only a sentence or two.

The remaining three entries indicate “No Preview Available”. This means you cannot see any content of the books.

Quick Tips

Be sure to watch for books that are freely available, or are in the public domain. Many U. S. government publications, and books out of copyright, are freely available on Google. If a link indicates that you can “Download this book”, by all means give it a try. You can download the PDF (Adobe Acrobat) file and use it for your research. Free PDF readers are available from Adobe for just about any computer system. See http://www.adobe.com.

Also, be sure to watch for indications that a book was scanned from a library. You may be able to check out the book through interlibrary loan. Of course, books on philatelic subjects (including mine) are available for check out from the American Philatelic Research Library. Look at the APS website for library information, http://www.stamps.org.

It might help to vary the search terms, or keywords, you use. While a major effort has been made by Google to assign keywords to publications, their terminology may not be the same as yours. The amount of information available with this tool is truly remarkable and we collectors and researchers should make use of it.

Results For a Book

When you click on any of the search result entries, you will be sent to a web page that contains one or more sections describing the specific book:

The “Preview this book” tab indeed shows the preview of selected pages from the book. The other tab, “About this book” provides more information about the publication, author, and so on. Controls near the top of the book preview allow you to scroll from one page to the next, zoom in or out, and other operations.

The right-hand side of the display allows more searching within the book, and quick access to the Table of Contents. Links lower down on the right refer to possible vendors for the book. In the case of my book, I've self-published, but many other books can be purchased from on-line book sellers, such as Amazon.

Note that the keywords that were in the search are highlighted (in yellow) in the contents display.

Another Example Result

One of the search results for “machine cancels” was an auction catalog. Here is the snippet view of that catalog, with information as to the origin of the publication.

The entry indicates that this catalog is in the holdings of a university library, but be sure to check the APRL if you are interested in seeing the entire auction catalog.

Narrower Searching

Let's narrow down the machine cancel search, and try to find books on the cancels of Ohio. One of the entries found from this new search is the following:

This is another item in a university collection, in particular a back issue of “The American Philatelist”. The search, however, found only one page with all of the keywords on it. The snippet view is included in this result. You should study such a search result carefully to determine if this issue of the Philatelist would be useful to you. In any case, back issues should be obtainable from the APRL (or the university library indicated in the result page).

Another Search

Enough for now on machine cancels. Let's try to find information on the hospitals of the First World War. Such facilities were located both in the United States, as well as in Europe near the theaters of action.

The first search result entry shown might be of great interest, as it is a unit history for a Base Hospital. Note that the entry indicates “Full View”. This book is no longer under copyright, and Google should allow you to view the entire book.

Notice the right-hand side of the book display. The link for “Download” allows you to download a PDF of the book and study it off-line. Note also, that if you are just interested in the text content, you can click on “View plain text”.

Conclusion

Do give Google Books a try when you are searching for information. As with any tool, it is best to “play” with it and find out what it can do for you. View many result pages, vary your search terms, and enjoy!

Next: Google Research

Another feature offered by Google is “Google Research”. Primarily intended for use by university researchers, this set of documents and publications may be of use to the postal history specialist. I will describe this capability in another article.

Table of Contents

Google Books Example

Results For a Book