More Is More: Google Book Search

I've played around with Google Book Search a little bit. It has helped me to locate and preview some titles I was interested in. It does exactly what it says it does: It allows you to "Search the full text of books and discover new ones." Imagine my surprise when this message arrived today from Patrick Hogan at ALA:

Several months ago ALA Editions signed an agreement with Google Book Search. Books have been mounted on the site over the past few weeks, and now some 350 titles are available. The following link uses the search terms "ALA Editions" in Google Book Search.

In 2005, Google claimed to reach more than 80 percent of Internet users and to be the #1 referrer to online book retailers, which holds true for the ALA Store. The Google Book Search listing of a title will link directly to the title's listing in the ALA Store. Google also links to the other online retailers and OCLC's Find in a Library service.

We have chosen Google Book Search's "Limited preview" option, which provides access control to the book's contents. The agreement, for example, stipulates that an end user would see no more than 20 percent of a book's pages in any one month period and can move forward or back only 2 pages. The display images of pages are purposely downgraded so that while legible, they are not of reproducible quality. A user cannot copy and paste or print pages except as images.

I came to ALA in 1995. In that time, electronic discussion lists, blogs, webcasts, podcasts, online learning communities, and wikis have emerged as alternatives to professional development content previously confined to books, journals, and conferences. As I've said in strategy discussions with colleagues, "If you're not on the Network, then you’re not there." ALA has tremendously useful body of work; I'm excited that Google Book Search will help people find it.

Well, Linda Miller and I are pretty excited, too! As relatively new authors with ALA, we like the idea that people will be able to find it, preview it, see the table of contents and some of the pages, compare prices (even includes Froogle!!), order it, and see who already may own it in the area (through WorldCat). You can find related titles (there aren't many--and that's good for us!) and you can even search the book for a word or phrases! You can see the front cover and the back cover. You can see the page layout and get an idea about the style of the writing. How cool is that!

Check out the details on Less is More: A Practical Guide to Weeding School Libraries for yourself and see other titles made more accessible through Google Book Search. BTW, we hope you like the book! Have you weeded your library recently?

Google Book Search. I think I like it! No, I know I love it! Who wudda thought?