Sender: Rare book and manuscripts <EXLIBRIS-L@LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>
I have a Google Book story that merits telling, but I've never had much
sense of success communicating directly with Google ... perhaps one of
our Stanford or Michigan or other "partner" colleagues can pass along
the tip.
I spent a couple of hours yesterday looking into what Google has brought
aboard "Books" in the last few months by searching "'Owen Meredith'
Lucile". I didn't make it through all 750 hits, but I did find a number
of things about which I had not previously known.
Among them was a snippet from "Georgia Review, 1947, p107-108." Fair
enough that it should be restricted, so a bit ago I wandered over to our
run of the title and found the 1947 volume -- as it happens, the very
first volume published. Pages 107 and 108 belong to different articles.
Neither mentions _Lucile_. Odd.
Back to Google. Everything still comes up 1947. Finally I notice a
microscopic image of a contents page. I print it out -- a flyspeck face
-- and with our best magnifier I am pretty sure I can make out the words
"Thomas", "English" and "Editorial". So I search "Thomas Editorial
'Georgia Review'" and sure enough I get a hit to the table of contents
for volume IX, Spring 1955, number 1. Back to the shelves, and you
guessed it, therein appears what by volume IX had become a standard
feature of each issue, a group of reviews of "Old Books" balanced by a
group of reviews of "New Books". Pages 107-109 are given over to Byron
Herbert Reece's reminiscences of reading the book at age "thirteen, or
thereabouts."
So it seems that, unless your search terms happen to land you on the
table of contents page for a volume other than I, all snippets from
anywhere in the run appear to be dated 1947.
I haven't yet been able to determine if "Books" treats all serials in
this remarkable way or whether _Georgia Review_ is its only hapless
victim.
Cordially -------- Sid Huttner
_______________
Sidney F. Huttner, Head, Special Collections
100 Main Library, The University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA 52242-1420
PHONE: 319-335-5921 FAX: 319-335-5900
sid-huttner@uiowa.edu
http://www.lib.uiowa.edu/spec-coll
The LUCILE Project: http://sdrc.lib.uiowa.edu/lucile