1.  How many universities are assisting Google in scanning books?

Thirteen universities

[Berkeley + 12 = 13; See article: "Google's contract with one university library, Berkeley's, stipulates that it must digitise 3,000 books a day. The minimum for the other 12 universities involved may be lower" (paragraph 2)]

2.    Why is Google paying these institutions for their help?

3.    What are the similarities and likely differences between Google’s project and Kahle’s Internet Archive?

Student A: The similarity is the intention of both projects which aiming to create a digital archive on the internet. What is different is that Kahle’s Internet Archive is focusing on gathering public-domain texts and videos while Google’s project is focusing on web-search, and also having a bigger scope for creating the digital library.

Student B: Google’s project has a lot more digitized books than Kahle’s

Student C: The similarities are digitizing many types of data and putting them online and allowing people to access the data for free. The difference is Kahle’s Internet Archive has video but Google is only digitizing books into online books.

4.    Paraphrase this sentence from paragraph 3: “Google’s…is off the charts.”

Student A: Google plans to make web-search and digitizing books much bigger and better than competitors.

Student B: Google is doing much better than its rivals.

5.    What do you think it means to “unbind” a book (paragraph 4)? Is this an example of literal or figurative language?


6.    How does the writer explain his statement at the start of paragraph 5: “change is least likely in the physical medium of books”?



7.    Explain the claim in paragraph 8 that “albums are dead.” Is this true for your generation of Thai music listeners?


8.    Telephone directories, cookbooks and textbooks (paragraph 9) are examples of…………..


9.    What word best fits in the blank in paragraph 9?
a. But        b. And        c. So        d. Or

10.    In your opinion, would it be good or bad if, as the article suggests, textbooks “ceased being books at all” (paragraph 9)?



11.    According to the article, how might the process of digitization help authors of books on history, political science and economics? How will this process help students writing research papers on these subjects?


12.    In your own words, what is “the slog of bookworming” (paragraph 12)?


13.    Why does the word “residents” in paragraph 13 appear within quotation marks?


14.    What transitional word best completes the blank at the start of paragraph 14?


15.    Why in the writer’s opinion will digitized novels not prove as popular as digitized textbooks?


16.    Explain this sentence from paragraph 15: “They might also use the new medium to enjoy poetry in a more traditional way.”


17.    How do you understand Godin’s quote in the last paragraph of the article: “[books] are ‘souvenirs of the way we felt’ when we read something”?


18.    In brief, how does the writer of the article characterize “the future of books”? In your opinion, what is this future like in Thailand? Will traditional paper books disappear, replaced by e-readers and online text? Explain.



19. Vocabulary
Using context clues, give a definition of these words:

a.    divulge (2)        ____________________________________________
b.    conservative (2)    ____________________________________________
c.    eponymous (5)    ____________________________________________
d.    comprehensive (6)     ____________________________________________
e.    snippets (7)        ____________________________________________
f.    nuanced (10)        ____________________________________________
g.    negligible (12)        ____________________________________________

20. What do the following phrases refer to?

a)    such rigidities (10)     ____________________________________________
b)    This (12)        ____________________________________________
c)    such like (13)        ____________________________________________
d)    the same way (13)