Accessing online books with searchable full text

[smcarberry]

An off-shoot of the Internet Archives, a collaborative effort by universities and libraries to place their books online, is a separate website called Open Library, which also has searchable full texts as well as information on locations of millions of
books, much like WorldCat. A page explains the similarities and differences:
http://openlibrary.org/about/faq

Here is the link to the advanced search page, which can be set to bring up only full-text searchable books. These online texts are much easier to read than those in the Internet Archives, although a copy-and-paste way of preserving desired text is not possible. However, a right-hand margin of categories of results allows a convenient way to sort through results, which allows quick reaching of books only by a certain author or publisher, or books of a certain era only.
http://openlibrary.org/advanced

Below are some results which I found, that might have gone undiscovered with similar online book collection search engines.

Sharon Carberry

Munster
by Stephen Lucius Gwynn
Published in 1912, Blackie (London)

Old Irish life
by J. M. Callwell
Published in 1912, W. Blackwood (Edinburgh, London)

Sketches of the Irish Highlands
description, social and religious, with special reference to Irish mission in West Connaught since 1840
by Henry M'Manus
Published in 1863, Hamilton, Adams (London)
p. 163 "Love of Learning in Boys"
a first-hand account of a conversation with two boys in the Galway Bay area, regarding their current circumstances and attitude toward future prospects

List of stockholders of the Bank of Montreal. [as of 31 May 1897]
includes city of residence

Might's Greater Toronto city directory
Published in 1846, Might Directories [etc.] (Toronto)

Toronto city directory.
Published in 1867, Might Directories
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL14045622M/To ... -directory

Toronto city directory.
Published in 1876, Might Directories.

History of St. Basil's Parish, St. Joseph Street
by Mary Hoskin
Published in 1912, Catholic Register and Canadian Extension (Toronto)

The story of St. Paul's Parish, Toronto.
Commemorating the centenary of the first parish church in the Archdiocese of Toronto.
by Kelly, Edward
Published in 1922, ([Toronto])
p. 104 bio of Rev. Thadeus Timothy KIRWIN b. 25 Mar 1816 Garagh, County Clare; in 1864 went to Menominee WI.
p. 128 bio of Reb. John Joseph EGAN b. 27 Feb 1846 County Clare, ordained
1873 St. Michael's Cathedral, Toronto, d. 29 Aug 1909, buried Barrie.
p. 136 bio of Rev. Launcelot MINEHAN, b. Killaloe, County Clare, ordained 1884 Montreal, etc.
p. 152 bio of Rev. Edward T. KEANE, b. 9 Feb 1887 Ennis, County Clare, ordained 1912 Montreal, etc.
p. 320 List of donors to a new church building fund - by name and street

History of Toronto and County of York, Ontario
containing a history of the city of Toronto and the county of York, with the townships, towns, villages, churches, schools, general and local statistics, biographical sketches, etc., etc.
Published in 1885, C.B. Robinson (Toronto)
http://openlibrary.org/b/OL7145994M/His ... k,-Ontario

[Paddy Casey]

What a superb trouvaille, Sharon ! Thank you very much indeed for flagging it. It's quite amazing.

I started by searching for Patrick White, (Rev) History of Clare and the Dalcassian Clans of Tipperary, Limerick, and Galway, M.H. Gill & Son, Dublin, 1893, a text which is cited in various places on the Clare Library site, and there it was. The whole book. It is presented by OpenLibrary in a way which, for me, is much more intuitive to read than the usual scrolling method, i.e. you just click on the little arrows at the right of the book and the pages turn backwards and forwards just as they do when one leafs through a book. Secondly, I could download the book as a PDF file (ca. 36 mb) and - hold on to your seat while I tell you this - once I had the PDF file open I could copy-and-past text from it to, for example, a Word document. This means that the books - or this book, at least - have been fully digitised.

I'm on a roll. Woooeee ! Thanks again, Sharon.

Paddy

P.S. Browsing another OpenLibrary book on the families around Tubber I came across a delightful little nugget. General Thomas Prendergast - possibly a distant relative of mine - was fighting in the War of Spanish Succession in 1708. The book notes that in campaigns of this type and duration it was usual for the General to return home each winter. In the winter of 1708 he spent his time in London, presumably leaving the army to shiver around their camp fires on some battlefield-to-be (or battlefield-that-was) while he enjoyed the Season. Imagine fighting wars like that, with senior officers who are supposed to be directing things retiring to the other side of the continent for a few months R&R each year. Haven't times changed ? P.

[Clare Admin]

We've added a new Digital Books service to the library website - based on the Open Library and Internet Archive links which Sharon so kindly posted here. We've made a selection - just over 500 titles - from the more than one million full-text scanned books on the Internet Archive, and we welcome any suggestions to add to this list, which we believe should be of help to those interested in the past days of Clare and Ireland. See http://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/online ... _books.htm for the list of books.
Clare Admin