Google Print is Now Google Book Search

Google has announced a name change from Google Print into Google Book Search. It's available at http://books.google.com/. As they say in their blog, "When we launched Google Print, our goal was to make it easier for users to discover books. Now that we're starting to achieve that, we think a more descriptive name will help clarify what our users can do with it: namely, search the full text of books to find ones that interest them and learn where to buy or borrow them."

All well and good, but here's my concern. By calling this enterprise Google Book Search, Google is limiting itself a lot. Part of the reason the Open Content Alliance is so exciting is that they're considering expanding into other arenas, into periodicals and non-book printed items. Google's not going to do that? All books? No magazines? No government reports? There are so many more printed materials out there than books, and it seems to me that the ephemera can be more rare, harder to find, and more important to archive!

This seems nitpicky, but the name change has given me definite unease. I think it's because that it's too early to limit the project this way. Why not concentrate on educating the visitors instead of changing the name? Do people think that Google Reader is a bunch of people at Google reviewing books? Do they think that Google News is just news about Google? And are they going to the name of Froogle to Google Shopping because Froogle isn't even a real word?

Rrrgh.

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