Finding Words in Books for Collage: A Tutorial

I like to use words in my collages, but was having trouble finding the ones I wanted. The only way to find them was to read, read, read until I found what I was looking for or gave up. Then I remembered Google book search.

You can search the contents of a book by the words you want. So now all I have to do is go to the site (http://books.google.com/books), find a copy of the book I’m cutting words from, and type in what I’m trying to find. Easy peasy.

For example, I have a copy of Winter Wheat by Mildred Walker I’m using to chop up for collage words. I search for that book at http://books.google.com/books. When I find it, I type in the box on the right side of the page for what I am searching for. It gives me the page number and the sentence the word is in. Voila!

You may not find an exact copy of the book you have in your hands, so the page numbers may be a bit off in your copy. But at least you have a place to start.

This saved my sanity and might save yours as well. Not that I’m implying anything. ☺

Now go sacrifice a book to your muse!