Although Google currently has a wealth of books in their Google Book Search database, this isn’t enough either for them or us, so they’ve taken steps to improve the situation.
If you now do a search, you’ll find references to millions of books that they haven’t yet digitized. You can then click on an “About the Book” page where you can find basic book information such as author, title, publication date, and where possible, reviews and web references.
Since Google hasn’t yet digitized these books, you won’t be able to preview or search the text, but when you find a book that interests you, they are offering links to places where you can buy it at a bookstore or borrow it from a library.
It’s a sensible move on Google’s part and pushes the blending of results a little further. After all, if I’m interested in a book, and I can’t find it in the digitized collection, I’m still going to be interested in it. This is a helpful move.
I was impressed with the currency of the database, and the easy availability of options to limit searching from All Books to Limited Preview to Full View. In summary – a really good improvement on the service providing immediate benefits to all searchers.
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