Maria’s Lucky Find

Maria contacted ReadyTechGo with a specific goal. To learn how to use Google in order to search the Internet.

Maria had been on a one woman mission to find the answer to her question “Will I ever find the book I’ve been searching for?”

Maria had treasured a photocopy of a single page from a book for no less than two years.

As the prince from the Cinderella story can probably appreciate, to find the book to match was a challenging task! (Or in his case, the foot!)

For all this time Maria had searched high and low for the book to match the page.

She had been to endless libraries and second hand bookshops but no one had been able to help her. Without the title of the book it seemed like an impossible feat.  

 

Unfortunately the header on the page was not the book title but was in fact just the chapter title! (You can see from the Image that it had a limited amount of information for Maria and her trainer to work with)

So Maria and her delightful (and equally determined) ReadyTechGo trainer Ruth Anderson began their search.

Their first port of call and to meet the initial request of Maria was to start searching Google.

Google is the world’s most powerful search tool and is incredibly user friendly. Even here at ReadyTechGo it still amazes us with what we are able to find.

They started by typing in the search bar the header that was on the page that Maria has treasured. They weren’t overly optimistic but if you don’t try these things you will never know!.

As luck would have it Google suggested a possible book title!

They then searched the book title that Google suggested to them and found the book that Maria had been searching for all these years on a website called Open Library (https://openlibrary.org/).

 

Open Library is an online library containing a huge number of FREE ebooks which can be downloaded. Ebooks are online books you read from your device, saving you room on your shelves and weight in your luggage. (Very handy if you like reading from an E-reader, Tablet or smartphone and love freebies!)

However, Maria didn’t want an ebook copy of it, she wanted a real life bound copy of the book.

(We too would want a real life trophy copy after all that searching!)

Ruth thought if they looked at it online they could at least be confident that it was the correct book.  

They reviewed the free ebook version and found that it did indeed match the page!

What an incredible stroke of luck and a great example of how powerful Google is.

The story doesn’t end there though!

 

The next challenge was to locate a copy of the book.  Maria called her local library and they didn’t have it but arranged to obtain one from an associated centre.

But wait, it gets better!  Some more Google searching by Maria and Ruth discovered a second hand copy available at a second hand bookshop in a neighbouring suburb!  

Maria had tried this bookshop before but at the time she hadn’t known the book title so wasn’t successful.

The plot thickens!

 

Would you believe, that between Maria’s first visit to this shop and discovering that they had a copy of the book after all, the bookshop had closed!!  

Yet another stroke of luck established that they still had an online shop.  

Maria called them and they did indeed have a copy!

By the time Ruth arrived for Maria’s next session only a week later, they had delivered it to her for the princely sum of $7…including delivery!  

Maria is now very impressed with Google and I’m sure a master of the Magic and medicine of plants!!!

So, as these stories go, they all lived happily ever after!

If you have a story that you think others would enjoy reading about or that would bring a little confidence to other new Tech learners, don’t be shy, get in touch!