Using Google Books To Do Research
In case you didn’t know, I’m a big fan of Google products. I use Gmail, Google Tasks, and Google Docs quite regularly. This blog comes to you courtesy of Blogger (owned by Google). And the list goes on.
But there’s one feature that really stands out that has helped me a great deal: Google Books. Through the Books project, Google has scanned more than 10 million books that can be found and accessed on line, mostly in partial snippet form. In some cases, though, whole books may be available.
I regularly use this to do research and sermon prep. Here’s how.
One of the best ways that I’ve found to use Google Books is for word studies. Suppose I’m doing a word study on John 1:1, “In the beginning was the Word…” and I wanted to find out more info on the word “beginning.” Through my Bible program I know that the word used there is the Greek word arche. And supposing that I don’t have a really expensive theological dictionary (which I don’t), I can go to Google Books, and do a search for Kittel’s Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. The ten volume set of that bad boy can run you $700.
Doing a search on Google Books for that set will take you to this page. (for the purposes of this search I’m actually using the abridged set). On the left side you’ll notice that you can search within the book, so I’ll type in the word arche. Here’s what I get:
This search turns up six instances in that book in which the word is used. Great nuggets.
Another way to do searches is to search a word through all books. I had to use this feature a few months ago while reading Abraham Heschel’s classic called The Sabbath. He mentioned a word/concept that I had never heard of before, and that he didn’t explain in the greatest manner: menuha. So I searched through all books and found this list of books. Upon clicking on the book at the top, I found this great source of information.
There are a ton of other ways to use it. If you’re doing just about any kind of research Google Books should be able to aid you and help you to find some good info. And best of all, it’s free.
Have you tried it out for research? What have you found?
[image by lockhaven]
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I love Google Books. I discovered it when I took my Research Strategies course last fall. It has been invaluable to me as I don't live anywhere near a library. Love, love, LOVE Google Books.
Google Books is great. They don't always have the most up-to-date books scanned (at least not in full), but for those classic reference sets like the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, it's great. I've also found another Google search page to be helpful for research–Google Scholar. http://scholar.google.com/schhp?hl=en This page not only searches books, but also "peer-reviewed papers, theses . . . abstracts and articles, from academic publishers, professional societies, pre-print repositories, universities and other scholarly organizations." The coolest thing about Google Scholar is that it ranks the search results based on the weight they carry in the academic community. The page says this about its ranking system: "Google Scholar aims to sort articles the way researchers do, weighing the full text of each article, the author, the publication in which the article appears, and how often the piece has been cited in other scholarly literature. The most relevant results will always appear on the first page." At the bottom of each search page, they list the top five cited authors on your particular topic, so you can get an idea who the "experts" are in your field. It's not as accurate or exhaustive as it could be, but it has helped me write some pretty awesome research papers in the Seminary (and hopefully some great sermons when I get back in the field). Check it out. See what you think. You gotta love Google.
pretty awesome, huh? gotta spread the google books love.
Thanks Rodlie. I haven't used this resource before and I find it handy and extensive. I like "google brand" too:) Have you tried google voice yet (it was not on the list above:) Blessings to you and yours, Adrian
Hey Adrian, Yeah, Google puts out some quality stuff. I've messed around a little bit with Google Voice, but haven't started to fully implement it. Seems like there's some positives and drawbacks…I may give it a deeper try in the future, though.