Libraries, museums meet with IT

The ability to search the actual text of millions of books — instead of just titles or summaries — will change the way students and academics conduct research, revealing a host of new sources invisible to current search methods, a Harvard University Library official working on the Google project said on March 28.

Dale Flecker, associate director of the Harvard University Library for planning and systems, gave an auditorium full of Harvard library, museum, and information technology administrators an overview of Harvard’s collaboration with Google Inc. to digitize a portion of the University’s enormous collection of library books. He also gave a tour of the capabilities of Google Inc.’s “book search” system, hinting that these capabilities are poised to continue to grow rapidly.

Flecker was just one of several speakers at a half-day conference, “Libraries, Museums, and Instructional Technology Program,” sponsored by the Provost’s Office. The conference, held at the Center for Government and International Studies (CGIS), featured speakers on topics including course Web sites, portals, and other digital resources; speakers on the Harvard University Library’s digital initiative; and breakout sessions on topics such as Geographic Information Systems, the Harvard Map Collection, Presidential Instructional Technology Fellows, and finding digital images at Harvard.