1. I have seventy-three (!) books checked out from my library. (They don't appear to be in high demand.) This week, when I went to renew them, the computer blew a big raspberry at me, which made me very Sad (because, um, seventy-three books). Shaking in terror at the prospect of overdue fines on seventy-three books, I traipsed over to the library and made inquiries of the work-study student...who couldn't get the books to renew, either. The whole shebang was kicked up, in turn, to a librarian, who noted that the problem was caused by some books that could no longer be renewed online. Solution? Quoth the librarian, "I'll have to renew them all individually." Yikes (because, er, seventy-three books). I abased myself appropriately before the now more-overworked-than-before librarian. Today, I got the receipt, which indicated that the entire problem was caused by...two books. You'd think the program could just renew the other seventy-one books and tell me to bring those two in, wouldn't you?
(Incidentally, the two books in question were both about Henry VIII. I don't know if his ghost was working overtime, or something.)
2. Time for futher adventures in GoogleBooks! I read a short Victorian children's novel yesterday, and whoever scanned it must have become very bored towards the end. All of a sudden, clumps of pages just went missing, some of them suddenly appearing later on (very out of order). Luckily, GB had also digitized the serialized version of the novel, so I don't think I missed much of anything.
Google Books can be maddening. If you find a full book, there might be poorly scanned pages, as you say. Then there are the partial books and snippets to drive you crazy. Better than nothing, but not much. Is Google Books some kind of scam?
Posted by: Bongo Chumunga | June 06, 2008 at 08:23 PM