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Susan Riegler

Susan Riegler, Director

Alden District Library

231/331-4318

Message: 11
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2026 17:38:52 -0400
From: Bob Barringer <director@blissfieldlibrary.org>
Subject: [Michlib-l] Re: Using Google Drive to provide public access
    to documents
To: "Bob Barringer" <director@blissfieldlibrary.org>
Cc: michlib-l <michlib-l@liblists.org>
Message-ID:
    <1a1320de10f.525dc353353438.1646425223919512613@blissfieldlibrary.org>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;
    boundary="----=_Part_1175159_371079332.1791841132816"

Just to be clear:  I want the dcouments to be searchable within the documents, not necessarily showing up on Google searches, although that is fine, as well.


Bob Barringer, PhD
Director
The Schultz-Holmes District Library
407 S. Lane St.
Blissfield, MI 49228
517-486-2858
blissfieldlibrary.org
Facebook: @blisslibrary



From: Bob Barringer via Michlib-l <michlib-l@liblists.org>
To: "michlib-l"<michlib-l@liblists.org>
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 2026 17:33:37 -0400
Subject: [Michlib-l] Using Google Drive to provide public access to documents

Hi, Gang.

Does anyone have any experience using Google Drive to provide public access to pdf files?

We want to make our both our local newspaper back issues and volumes of our local high school yearbook available via our website.  Our webhost does not want these documents stored on its server, but we can store them elsewhere and provide a link to the documents from the website.  We have enough space on DropBox, but the documents load very slowly and don't appear to be searchable in any way (the docuements are ocr-scanned searchable pdfs).  I'm loading 150 years, a year per document, of a weekly newspaper and the entire collection is less that 100 GB, so the files are not that big.  6-700 mb on average.

I am looking into Google Drive, which seems reasonably-priced, but I have no experience with it at all. i am looking to provide read-only acess to anyone connecting with the link on the website.  Will my documents be searchable?  Might I expect Google Drive to be faster than DropBox?  Any other suggestions on how I make this dream o' mine work?

Thanks in advance (a pun of sorts--or close enouogh to one-- because the local newspaper is called The Advance).

Bob