Google Elements

Google Elements is a lesser-known Google feature. Elements lets you embed Google Calendar, Chat, GoogleDocs Presentations, custom search, spreadsheets, GoogleMaps and other Google content into your Web site by just copying and pasting some code. You can easily enhance your teacher/LMS site with student presentations, your class calendar, maps, or other Google content.

The latest Element is News. There are eight general news feeds (Top stories, entertainment, technology, World, US news, and others) or you can create your own using keywords. Like this News Element for Libraries:

Google Search Options--Something New

Do a Google search and now in the upper left above your search results there is a link Show Options. Click this link and you are presented with a list of ways to limit or view results. You can see results only for video, forums, or reviews. Select results by timeframe. You can change your list view from Standard to images or more text, which can be helpful as you browse the results. You can click related searches and get a list of other phrases that might help narrow/expand your search.

Two other features are the News Timeline recently introduced by Google and the WonderWheel. The WonderWheel is a satellite-shaped display of related searches.

Take some time to explore these new features. Useful or not?

Google & Privacy

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has asked the Federal Trade Commission to: 

... pull the plug on Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and the company's other Web apps until government-approved "safeguards are verifiably established."

More details on Cnet News here. Tempest in a teapot or something to worry about?

GMail Stickers

Act fast for some free GMail stickers from Google. From the Official Google Mail Blog:

There's the standard Gmail m-velope -- dressed up in glitter. One of three bookplate style stickers you can stick on anything from the inside of a favorite book to your laptop or your skateboard. (Trading with friends is encouraged -- we realize the unicorn isn't for everyone.) And there's a sheet of keyboard shortcut stickers intended as a tool to help people learn Gmail's shortcuts. The adhesive is a bit more removable than standard stickiness, so you can take them off once you've trained your fingers.

Details here. Your self-addressed stamped envelop needs to be postmarked by February 14, 2009.

Belt & Suspenders: Backing Up Your Google Info

Even though online resources and tools are generally secure with little danger of data loss, it is still a good idea to back up your data. The announcement that Google will no longer support Notebook is a reminder that even the biggest guys with the most reliable tools can change their offerings. 

So...read this Mashable article on How To: Take Your Data Back from Google's Claws. It explains ways to extract and back-up documents and information from Google services including Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Picasa, Google Reader, and more. 

MapHappy

Here is an interesting use of a Google map mashup. The University of Minnesota has created a finding aid for its map collections because "Print maps can be difficult to find in the library. MapHappy changes that. Search or Browse all maps held in the multiple library locations across the UMN-Twin Cities campus."(from MapHappy page).

According to the Minitex Reference blog, MapHappy is a Google Maps mashup that provides users with visual information about the location and coverage of print and electronic maps while searching University Libraries collection. A browse feature also allows users to find maps that cover a particular geographic area rather than searching with key terms. All 30,000 maps held in the Twin Cities libraries are discoverable in MapHappy. These resources are still in beta and will be released sometime in January 2009. Note that this is a finding aid for the University's collections; the maps themselves are not online. 

 

Now, Magazines

Google announced that is has added magazines to Google Book Search. Here is an Official Google Blog post about the new feature. I couldn't find a list of the "ever-growing" number of magazines being added. Results will be tagged with "magazine." One interesting feature--a Google map with pinpoints to the locations mentioned in the magazine issue you are viewing. This adds to the other special collections like Patents, Life magazine photo archive, and News Archive.

New Tools

Life Magazine Photo Archive
2 million photos from Life Photo library from 1750s on. The goal is to add 10 million of Life's photos. Search from the start page or you can include source:life with any Google Image search query. Great for History Day, among other things.

EtherPad
"The perfect way to collaborate on a text document and keep everyone literally on the same page." Doesn't Google Docs already do this? Their answer:

No. Google Docs is a suite of products that do many things, from word processing to spreadsheets to document management. One thing that Google Docs does not do is real-time collaborative text editing. We think this is an important use case, so we built EtherPad with real-time collaboration as the focus.

Gmail Themes
Not exactly a productivity enhancer, but Gmail has added the ability to customize the look of your Gmail account.

Google SearchWiki
Tailor your Google search results. Learn more.



And a tool no more--Lively
Google announced that it will discontinue Lively, a Second Life-type 3-D virtual world creator in December.

Google Book

You may know that Google was being sued by authors and publishers over the book scanning project. Well, they have reached a settlement. Not sure if this is good news, bad news, or no news in the sense that not much will change for the user. Except for the need for libraries and universities to purchase a license? According to Google Official Blog,

This agreement is truly groundbreaking in three ways. First, it will give readers digital access to millions of in-copyright books; second, it will create a new market for authors and publishers to sell their works; and third, it will further the efforts of our library partners to preserve and maintain their collections while making books more accessible to students, readers and academic researchers.

Here is each party's take on the settlement.

• Google Book Search’s page on the settlement
• Association of American Publishers’ page on the settlement
• Author’s Guild page on the settlement
• Joint FAQ about the settlement
• Official Google Blog entry about the settlement
• University of Michigan President Paul Courant’s analysis. (University of Michigan was one of the early Google Book partners.)

The library section, down near the bottom of the first link, says:

This agreement wouldn’t have been possible without all the libraries who have preserved these books and now partnered with us to make so many of them discoverable online. We’re delighted that this agreement creates new opportunities for libraries and universities to offer their patrons and students access to millions of books beyond their own collections. In addition to the institutional subscriptions and the free public access terminals, the agreement also creates opportunities for researchers to study the millions of volumes in the Book Search index. Academics will be able to apply through an institution to run computational queries through the index without actually reading individual books.

"...computational queries without actually reading individual books" has a brave new world sound about it, doesn't it

*Update* Harvard University Library weighs in and isn't happy. From Library Journal: Harvard University Library Director Robert Darnton said that

As we understand it, the settlement contains too many potential limitations on access to and use of the books by members of the higher education community and by patrons of public libraries.

Concern of many seems to be that Google is going from "a universal digital library" to a "universal digital bookstore" with Google Book (Paul Courant, UMich President). Libraries have collected these materials and made them available to researchers and others and with the idea of licenses or other payments for materials, some librarians are not happy. The Library Journal article above has a roundup of reactions.

Thing 7. Search Engines

Google is 10 years old this year--which is a surprise. It seems it has been around forever. In honor of its birthday, Google has made one its earliest indexes (2001) of the Web available for the curious to search. The Washington Post has an interesting article about its efforts at searching "old" Google. The article is here. Not much for Wikipedia, Facebook is still limited to a few Ivies, and blogging is just taking off (according to US News and World Report, 1.15.01). If you want to llik at what was actually on a site back then, try the Internet archive Wayback Machine.

The Google site will be up until the end of the month at Google.com/search2001.html.