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In discussing the term "full text" with some librarian friends, I realized there is wide variation within our community regarding what we mean when we say "full text" by a search box. I had a look at the current Wikipedia article for grins, which brings in the angle that "full text" means you are searching an index of the full text, which I don't think many of us mean these days. For that, I'd stipulate "Searching full text." But the big place for doing that right now would be books.google.com, which only disappoints us if we get stuck with Snippet View after a "full text" search gets us only a piece of a work. We want to access full text, ideally available online. For me, full text means text as text-based media that I can get to online and do Ctrl-F and find the phrase I want inside of the complete work. For a colleague, it means a printable document, including even an image of a manuscript, for example. Several others seem to agree that it just means the complete work, whether online textual formats, analog print, microform, audio, and even video.
What does "full text" mean to you?
To me, a "full text search" means you are searching the entire text (whether directly or via an index), as opposed to a title, synopsis, or set of keywords. I'm used to the concept (from paid databases) that you may be able to locate an item of interest, but only see it in full after you've paid.
Thanks! Let's go ahead then and make a distinction between a {"full text search" or "searching full text"} and {a "search for full text."}
If you're looking at a search box, searching for the "full text" of something, what all do you expect to see as hits returned from your query? Ebooks, pdfs, and html pages would seem easy to agree on, but what about print books, microform, images of pages, audio books, video, etc.?
dilettante said:
To me, a "full text search" means you are searching the entire text (whether directly or via an index), as opposed to a title, synopsis, or set of keywords. I'm used to the concept (from paid databases) that you may be able to locate an item of interest, but only see it in full after you've paid.
slovoestlozh said:
Let's go ahead then and make a distinction between a {"full text search" or "searching full text"} and {a "search for full text."}
I agree that in the results-list of a search the notation that something is "full text" is so often misleading. But as to your last question, free access to print books and images of pages has been tried by Google Book Search, with varying results. It seems to me that most librarians love free availability of information, whereas most IP lawyers, some of whom are my good friends, tell me that such freedom would be the downfall of society. I think the latter are exaggerating, and to support that, I recommend to you Professor Lawrence Lessig's wonderful presentation (it's a YouTube video toward the end of the article).
Not an argument, exactly; you just reminded me of a comment I encountered and retained:
Most people thought [in 2000] that Web content should somehow be “free,†a hopelessly naïve ideology known today as “dot-communism.â€...Dot-communism has been discarded along with its political counterpart, as users find that the adjective “free†means, as it always does, “paid for by someone else,†who insists on getting it back one way or another. -David S Platt, "Introducing Microsoft .NET, Third Edition", 2003
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