#7 Google Books

I had a mixed success with Google Books, but overall was very impressed.
I initially searched for "August" by Bernard Beckett. There were only three reviews of this book and there was no link to finding it in a library. Interestingly, although I found the book quite disturbing, other people had really enjoyed its message.

I then went on to do a search for "Dash and Lily's Book of Dares" by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan. I had great success with this book and Google Read showed full text of the first 20 pages and it was available at five libraries in Melbourne (which was a great feature).

I then searched for a book which is from America and not readily available in Australia. This was when Google Read really excelled. For the first time, I was able to read from the book, read mixed reviews of it and if I had chosen buy it from Amazon for $17, as opposed to $50 from Dymocks. As I have never seen the book in person, this was brilliant because I could more effectively evaluate it against my selection criteria.

I would definitely use Google Read at both work and home. It would be great when a student asks me to buy a book and we don't have it. By searching on Google Read, I could show him the book cover, synopsis, reviews, perhaps even read some of it and find out whether it is available at a nearby library. The student could then publish their own review of the book.

At home, it could be used when I see a review in The Age of a book and I want to cross compare it with another source. I could then go and purchase it online.