Things 13-15 Google Maps, Docs, Books and Scholar

Have been a regular user of Google maps for some time , particularly when reviewing real estate. Always impressed by the ability to shift from map to terrain and satellite. Unfortunately strong use of Google maps by our students does not help our internet charges. A recent development has the addition of Google street. I am still amazed at how all these street level images were obtained.

I utilized Google Docs and uploaded a document then managed to share it with one of my colleagues. Easy access to Google docs without having to use a specific application or connect to an individual network is a great advantage. Templates and calendar are also good and easy to use. There are still some issues, however, with having corporate content loaded onto a third part resource such as Google Docs, even if the resource is secure.

Google Books – growing resource and part of google’s strategy to scan anything that moves. In 2006 Google signed agreements with five great research libraries—the New York Public, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford, and Oxford's Bodleian—to digitize their books. The jury is out on whether this is a great advance in information sharing or cornering the maknowledge market. At least with Google Books search the preview options are a great way to assess the thrust of a work.

Google Scholar is a very powerful tool covering a mass of data. Using the Scholar Preferences' allows me to find books in the VU Library Catalogue and direct links to articles in full-text from our databases. The tool still has some problems in that the results are not always easy to interpret and it is not always easy to know what sort of document has been retrieved. I also find that unless you use some of the advanced option, science orientated results can dominate your hit list.