First chapters/excerpts in Tripod--share your opinion
Last year the Tri-College libraries subscribed to a service that provides first chapters/excerpts of some books in Tripod, for example: 
Renewal time is upon us.
Do you find the first chapters/excerpts useful?
Do you think we should renew the service?
For more examples of first chapters/excerpts, see:
Comments
Ann Wheeler said on February 10, 2006 9:16 AM:[link to this]
I don't know about the chapters, but I do love the images of the covers. That is really helpful when you're trying to remember if you've seen the book before or not.
Michelle said on February 10, 2006 11:12 AM:[link to this]
Great book for the example!
James Saxon said on February 16, 2006 12:32 PM:[link to this]
The books included in this database are so few and far between that I don't really see the point. You can't count on it being there, and I don't find the excerpts that helpful when they are. I don't see much reason to renew.
Andrew Yeats said on February 17, 2006 7:21 PM:[link to this]
It's nice, but I definitely think a subscription to even an esoteric journal would far outweigh it in usefulness. If it costs more than the average journal subscription, I'd say get rid of it.
Julia Wise said on February 21, 2006 2:24 PM:[link to this]
I have never used this, nor do I expect to.
mike zarro said on February 21, 2006 3:02 PM:[link to this]
I think the cover image is great, for the reason above. Table of contents on the main results page is far more useful, first chapter or excerpt not so much for my use. If the service were expanded to include a search IN the book, I think it'd be extremely valuable.
Kelsey Lane Smith said on February 22, 2006 8:33 AM:[link to this]
I have never used it because the books that I have chosen to use for my classes have not been included. As a consequence it has not been useful for me so I do not think it should be continuedv
particularly since the first chapters of books are frequently available on amazon.com.
Lauren said on February 22, 2006 3:58 PM:[link to this]
I agree with James and Kelly. I didn't even know about this service until now-- it's never been available for a book I've looked up. Websites available for free like amazon.com and print.google.com seem to obviate this service to a large degree.
Michael Stone said on April 20, 2006 1:46 PM:[link to this]
This service doesn't index the books that I read and frankly, I have no use for static digital excerpting whatsoever. Therefore, I agree with the previous posters that (for me, anyway) the service has been of no value.
That being said, even if the service had been adequately publicized, it would still have been next-to-useless. For me, the major advantage of books in digital form over print form is the ability to use full-text search to find passages relevant to the subject that I'm trying to research. Hence what I actually want is full-text searchable, unrestricted access to the complete content, including illustrations, of every book and every article ever written. I recognize that this may sound like a tall, even an impossible order. However, that's that standard by which I'm judging services like this company's.
I'd also point out that for many of the primary sources that I read, this level of service is not only feasible but is a reality today. Projects like the University of Michigan's "Humanities Text Initiative" (http://www.hti.umich.edu/), the University of North Carolina's "Documenting the American South" (http://docsouth.unc.edu/), and even Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/) have been far more helpful than the crippled offerings that have been made available so far for sources still covered by copyright simply because they give me the ability to use every tool I care to use to learn anything I want to learn from the text in question, without restriction.
In light of my experience, I'll just offer that for the kind of reading I do, a prominently displayed unified body of links to these unrestricted comprehensive resources would have been of more use than any commercial service like the one described.
Perhaps it's time for a student/faculty/staff modifiable Trico Library Wiki?