(Thing # 14) (Insert Cheesy Google Books Title Here)

Wow, Google Books is great! Not perfect, but definitely a good resource. I would be more likely to use it to look for older books and passages; but maybe that's just because I'm more familiar with Amazon's layout for when I'm doing new book orders.

I liked how, if I did a search for a phrase, I was directed right to the page where that phrase shows up. For example I searched the line in the William Carlos Williams poem, 'this is just to say, i ate the plums' and came up with several books- some with the poem, several with commentary on the poetry.

The 'Search for Libraries' tool is also a great resource that directs you to WorldCat; I was able to find that a number of the books I searched are over at Western's library.

I'm assuming that Google's partnership with libraries and universities assures that copyright laws are followed. I could turn this entry into a debate on the rights of authors, or I could talk about the environmental resources it takes to produce all of our books, OR the resources used to digitize and run those books through the internet... but I'd rather have that conversation face to face! I don't assume to have the answers; I just think we should be having the conversations.