Group items tagged

I know, it's only Google Books but it's so good for student research I thought I'd chuck it in. If you tell your students to use the 'Ctrl+F' function to search for keywords it can make their research much faster.

'Google has a big economic incentive to ensure that its online library is widely available: it makes most of its money from search advertising, so the more people that use its services, including the online book archive, the better. It also has a legal incentive to watch its step. The agreement stipulates that institutional subscription prices must be low enough to ensure that the public has "broad access" to digital books, while at the same time earning market rates for copyright owners. So if lots of libraries refuse to sign up for Google's service because it is too costly, the company could be slapped with a lawsuit.'

Not sure how useful this would be but it's fun. You can search the frequency of terms from 1800 to the present in books and Ngram will graph the results. 

As my son marvels at the battle diaries, postcards, letters and photographs, and scrupulously unfolds war maps depicting the strategic battlelines in the fields of Gallipoli and the Somme, he surrenders to the pleasure of discovering history by his own hands. The touch, the sight, the smell of these items, each tells a story of their own and he takes his time in absorbing it all. Then in true Gen Y form, he reaches for the digital camera and begins to photograph the maps, crests, war pay books, menus of Christmas dinners - detailed and digital proof that he has, at last found, what he was searching for.