Google Books as a General Research Collection

The current study attempts to measure the extent to which "full view" volumes contained in Google Books constitute a viable generic research collection for works in the public domain, using as a reference collection the catalog of a major nineteenth-century research library and using as control collections-against which the reference catalog also would be searched-the online catalogs of two other major research libraries: one that was actively collecting during the same period and one that began actively collecting at a later date. A random sample of 398 entries was drawn from the Catalogue of the Library of the Boston Athenaeum, 1807-1871, and searched against Google Books and the online catalogs of the two control collections to determine whether Google Books constituted such a viable general research collection.