I’m not actually obsessed by google, it’s just that they’re doing so much cool stuff. Today’s mention is about something I’ve touched on in the past – the sum of human knowledge at our fingertips. Everyone’s getting used to the notion of google as one’s adjunct brain – who starred in casablanca opposite Bogart? How many home runs did Reggie Jackson hit in ’79? What’s the population of Saratoga Springs, NY? – all of these answers are yours in about the amount of time it takes to type the question. What we need is more content, specifically the content that’s locked away in books (we’ll get to the content in movies and other multimedia later). Anyway google announced today that they’ve signed a deal with the University of Michigan to put the full text of every book in the University’s library online. 7 million books, fully searchable. On the one hand this is just the tip of the iceberg – 7 million books sounds like a lot but it’s really not in the scheme of things. On the other hand this is huge in terms of precedent. I hope this leads to a cascade of follow up projects – surely Microsoft will want to get into the game and they’ve got deep enough pockets to do it.

The downside of this is that it will take years to achieve, but it’s a start, a very auspicious one at that. Go google!