Searching Your Own Collection on Google Books

A lot of virtual (and real) ink has been spilled over the question of whether or not it's a good idea for Google to digitize all the world's books. I will not weigh in on that, except to give this example of how it has been helpful to me.

If you are a researcher, or just the curious sort, you know well that a book's index is an invaluable tool that often falls short. As Michelle and I have found out in each of our three books, only so much can fit in an index, and it can be a painful process deciding which important terms end up on the cutting room floor.

Enter Google Books.

Even a book that's available only as a preview at books.google.com will be fully searchable. I often find myself half-remembering a fact from some obscure New York City reference work on our shelves. I plug in the name of the book and the information I want to find and -- presto -- Google Books more likely than not tells me exactly what page its on. I go to the shelf, pull down the book, and read the passage I want. Without a digital index, this would have been impossible.

Now, if Google Books could only tell me how to actually find the books in my over-stuffed personal library.....