Assessing the coverage of Hawaiian and Pacific books in the Google Books Digitization Project

Purpose: This article reports on a quantitative study of massive digital library (MDL) Google Books' coverage of Hawaiian and Pacific Books. Design/methodology/approach: A total of 1,500 books were randomly selected from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa's Hawaiian, Pacific, and general stacks collections. Their level of access was then determined in Google Books by observing whether the books had a metadata record, were full-text searchable, and whether they were available as in snippet, preview, or full-text views. Findings: Results show that Google Books has a sizable number of metadata records for Hawaiian and Pacific books, but has only a limited number available for full-text searching. In contrast, a larger number of books from the general stacks were available for full-text searching. Research limitations/implications: Because of the small sample size, margins of error remain large. The field would benefit from a larger size of collection sample. The scope of the project is also limited to Google Books and does not investigate other book digitization projects. Practical implications: Diversity in librarianship is a major concern for libraries both within the United States, as in the case of historically underrepresented groups as well as in non-English-speaking countries. Social implications: Diversity in librarianship also concerns the central mission of libraries to provide the basic human right of access to information. Digital libraries must be held to the same standards. Originality/value: Massive digital libraries such as Google Books need to be more carefully examined; this study contributes to this need. Keywords: Massive digital libraries (MDL); Google Books; Hawaii; Pacific; historically underrepresented groups; Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)