Revamped Google Adds More Book Data

by Calvin Reid, PW Daily -- Publishers Weekly, 5/18/2007

After a major redesign of its famous search engine, Google is introducing what it calls a "universal search" system that will combine search retrievals for each request and offer the most relevant results from across all of its specialized search engines, like Google Book Search, News and Images. As a result, books are more likely to come up earlier in a general search for a specific term.

In a second change, Google has added new bibliographic data to its search engines for millions of books provided by its partners, but that it has not yet scanned, data that will also show up in search results from both the regular Google search and from Google Book Search.

Although the new book data added to Google and Google Book Search has not been scanned—and readers will not be able to see the full-text of the books—searchers will be able to find basic information. On Google Book Search, the About the Book page will provide author, title, reviews and pub date, as well as links to libraries or retailers where the book is available.

Jennifer Parson, a Google spokesperson, said the new book data includes information on millions of old and newer books. And while Google will not provide the full text of the titles, Parsons said the data has been added to the search engine "to make Google Book Search a more comprehensive book discovery tool."