A couple of months ago Google launched a new application in Google Labs (the experimental section of Google products) called the
Books Ngram Viewer. The Books Ngram Viewer provides users with a tool for graphing when and how frequently phrases, names, and words have appeared in the books archived by
Google Books. Watch the short video below for a visual explanation of the
Books Ngram Viewer.
Applications for Education
The Books Ngram Viewer could be a neat way to compare when and how frequently terms historically appeared in books. For example, in the
graph below you can see when the names Rockefeller and Carnegie started appearing in books. After creating the graph, you can click through to find the books that were published in those years.
