By Jason Boog on GalleyCat Aug 05, 2010
In a fascinating post about how Google copes with metadata surrounding millions and millions of books, the Internet company announced they have counted 129,864,880 books in the world.
Here's an excerpt from the post, written by software engineer Leonid Taycher: "We collect metadata from many providers (more than 150 and counting) that include libraries, WorldCat, national union catalogs and commercial providers. At the moment we have close to a billion unique raw records ... Counting only things that are printed and bound, we arrive at about 146 million. This is our best answer today. It will change as we get more data and become more adept at interpreting what we already have."
The post then details how Google Books separates out duplicate library records and exclude other formats like microfilm or video. It also focuses on metadata, the digital information that helps sort, catalog, and find books--the next frontier for publishers and authors. (Via Shelf Awareness)
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