October 27, 2003

Book cites

Posted by Eszter

Starting today, searches on Amazon.com will look for your terms in the entire text of over 120,000 books. Not only do you get a list of books that cite an author or mention a concept, but you can also view a pdf copy of the page where the citation occurs.

As an academic, this serves as an extremely helpful complementary tool to the Social Science Citation Index (or other citation index equivalents), which allow similar searches for journal articles.

It is also a fun procrastinatory tool as I try to figure out which of the Hargittai references are to my work and not to the work of my parents.:) (Thanks go to my Mom for calling this new feature to my attention.)

Posted on October 27, 2003 05:46 PM UTC
Comments

Vanity dressed up as procrastination I say (rather meanly but then it’s late where I am). Still, you can only google yourself so many times can’t you.

Posted by jdsm · October 27, 2003 08:37 PM

Of course that part is about vanity, no offense taken at your comment.:) I doubt I’d be the only one to try out the feature in that way though.;)

Posted by eszter · October 27, 2003 09:23 PM

I would imagine that this might be a tad more useful for the Hargittais and Runnacleses of this world than we poor buggers lumbered with the fourth most common surname in the English-speaking world.

Posted by dsquared · October 28, 2003 07:00 AM

No, you’re not the only one, Eszter. I’ve already searched for my name at amazon (and I’ve googled myself too).

Is Davies the fourth most common surname in the English-speaking world? Isn’t it Scottish? And how many of them most common surnames are Scottish in origin?

Posted by Invisible Adjunct · October 28, 2003 02:22 PM

It’s Welsh (like “Jones”, the number 2 name after Smith), and fourth most popular was an “estimate”. (Although not a bad one; apparently “Davis”, the Anglicised form, is sixth most popular in the USA)

Posted by dsquared · October 28, 2003 02:58 PM

As in Evans the milk, Jones the fish, and Davies the nonergodic process…

Posted by Chris Bertram · October 28, 2003 03:18 PM

The search is also easier for the ‘Weatherson’s of the world. I was shocked to see that one (of two) uses of my name was in a fictional business-school example. It’s a pretty rare name, so I’m a bit puzzled about how the author would have come up with it.

Posted by Brian Weatherson · October 28, 2003 04:54 PM

I occasionally Google myself when bored and slightly drunk, so the Amazon is a welcome supplement. I, personally, showed up exactly once in a diligent search. Progress.

The most famous me was the owner of Dred Scott in the famous XIX c. legal case (hiss). Next most famous is the film-director husband of Anita Loos (OK). Next, a shady Clintonista politician (hiss). Then there’s someone who’s involved in Human Rights Watch (hurrah).

Oddly, there are two scholars in my Asian Studies field with approximately my name, one a Japanologist and the other a Sinologist who fell victim to McCarthy. (He spelled his name differently, though).

Note: my name isn’t Zizka. Jan Zizka was a Hussite military leader who held off the evil Holy Roman Empire empire for decades. There remain a lot of real Zizkas in the world, but I beat them all in the Google standings.

Posted by Zizka · October 29, 2003 05:13 AM
Followups

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.