Updated Books Home Page and My Library

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 at 2:25 PM

Posted by Brandon Badger, Product Manager, Google Books

I'm happy to announce a few fresh features for Google Books. We've updated the home page by adding the ability to scroll through categories of books and magazines.

We also integrated the My Library feature into the home page to enable you to create and then share collections of books by adding them to "bookshelves." This new version of My Library gives you control over your collections by enabling you to keep some bookshelves private--if, say, you want to organize your own personal reading lists--while sharing others.

Previously, all books in your My Library were part of a single collection, and you could tag books with labels to organize. Now, instead of tagging a book with a label, you can add it to one or more bookshelves. As part of this transition to bookshelves, we're migrating all the previously created labels to the new bookshelf system. For example, if you had tagged a book with a label called "favorite travel books," then you'll now see a custom bookshelf called "favorite travel books" that contains the same book.

As always, you have full control over your book collection data. We continue to offer the Book Search API as a way for you to extract and edit your data. Ultimately, we also hope that these open APIs will make it easier to build product integrations that synchronize reading lists across devices and applications.

You can search and discover millions of books on Google Books. Our hope is that these new tools will make it easier for you to find, organize and keep track of the books that you're interested in reading.

Books are Full of Visual Gems: 19th Century home exercise edition!

Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 11:41 AM

Posted by Ryan Sands, Google Books Online Team

It may come as no surprise to the book nerds out there (you know who you are) that the annals of written history are full of visual gems.

When you come across something interesting in a public domain title that has been scanned via our Library Project, you can easily add it to your own website or blog. Simply snag the chunk of text or image using our Share this Clip feature in Google Books () and copy and paste the Embed HTML code onto your site.

It's hard to believe, but we're already a few weeks into 2010. For many folks, a new year means the creation of New Year's resolutions. Though I usually don't bother coming up with my own, I used January 1, 2010 as my excuse to get back to the gym. I was never much of an athlete, but so far I've stuck to my resolution to run a few miles a few times a week.

For a historical perspective on my little project, I went on Google Books and started digging up home exercise and workout manuals from the end of the 19th century. Turns out the fundamentals of weight training haven't changed much in 100 years, although I usually don't go running in a three-piece suit and handlebar mustache. I used the Clip feature in Google Books to collect these images and diagrams. Simply click any image to read the original book source!

[Please note, some content may not be available in full view to users outside of the United States.]


"A manual of the theory and practice of the lifting exercise" - 1871



"A system of physiologic therapeutics" by Solomon Solis-Cohen - 1904



"Health Habits" by M. V. O'Shea and J. H. Kellogg - 1921



"Physical Culture: A Manual of Home Exercise" - 1892



Home gymnastics for the sick and the well" by Eduard Ferdinand Angerstein - 1889


"Calisthenics and light gymnastics for home and school" by Alfred M. A. Beale & Samuel M. Spedon - 1888

Emily Dickinson, in her own words and in translation

Thursday, December 10, 2009 at 12:02 PM

Posted by Agustina Dates, Google Books Online Team

In A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf poses a question that's had a major impact on discussions of writing and gender over the past and current century: Does writing have a "gender"? Does one’s gender leave a trace in words? Could you tell the gender of a writer just by reading what they've written?

Emily Dickinson was born on this day in the year 1860. And while in most of Dickinson's poems it's very obvious to me that they came from the pen of a woman, in others she seems to make her gender imperceptible.



My first introduction to Emily Dickinson was when reading her work in Spanish, and the translator for the book was another woman: the great Argentinean writer Silvina Ocampo. Here things become more complicated... how do we translate? And if writing has a gender, does a translation have it too? What is the task of a translator? Grammar has its own agenda and changes according to the language, so the traces of gender that appear in the original version of a poem may disappear in its translation. At other times, I've read translations that have unearthed traces of gender that were not evident in the original version.

Google Books has scanned books in over 100 languages, and you can search for titles in a specific language by selecting it on our advanced search options. If you speak a language other than English, why don’t you give it a try and look for versions of your favorite books in different languages? You will see it’s a totally different experience!

List of all magazines now available in Google Books

Thursday, November 05, 2009 at 9:21 AM

Posted by Jeffrey Peng, Software Engineer, Google Books

I'm a software engineer on Google Books. One of my main projects is adding magazine content and features to the site. In September we were excited to announce the availability of over 1,860 issues of the iconic LIFE magazine on Google Books. One of the feature requests that I got from friends and family was to add a way to browse all the magazines available. Someone even created a Facebook group called Get Google Magazine Search to provide a list of indexed titles. The group has 45 members and growing, so before it reached millions of members and there were protests in front of my house, I decided that I better act fast. I'm happy to announce that last week I coded up a page on Google Books that lets you browse the available magazine titles. You can view the page here.



I can't promise that I can respond to every Internet protest with a feature addition, but you're always invited to send us feedback here. Rest assured that we're working hard to make the magazine browse, search, and reading experience better each month. Happy reading!

Announcing the winners for the 10 Days in Google Books contest - Part III

Friday, October 30, 2009 at 1:00 PM

Posted by Hicham Alaoui, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Books


Following our first announcement this week, here is the third and final set of winning entries for the 10 Days in Google Books contest. As a reminder, to enter the contest users had to submit a short essay describing what the experience of reading will be like in 100 years.

"Out jogging, Jim spied a news stand, its spire bright red. Looking at it, his ocular implant scrolled headlines about the stand. Seeing one that caught his fancy, a quick motion towards the stand debited his account, and brought the story scrolling over his vision as he continued."

Alexander Hollins, Phoenix, AZ

"Well the problem with reading in the year 2109 is we will at that point in time just start creating paper once again, and then its about another 1000+ years till we invent the press again. What am I talking about? 21 Dec 2012! EVERYONE RUN!"

Lowell Wann, Albuquerque, NM

"One innovation of the future will be real time novelists who craft their stories online as readers interact with the writer and each other, commenting, questioning, and pleading for their favorite characters to achieve deserved greatness or avoid gruesome death."

Jonah Hurwitz, Coral Springs, FL

"Now available in attractive spex, signet ring, wristband, or pendant! Our full-on interactive holographic projection readers connect you to a world of information. News from around the world, classic novels, instant info on any topic, presented in your personalized reading style: language, video, pictograms or symbols. No wireless fee!"

Cheryl Kuchman, Sacramento, CA

"Ah, but to have a book read to you. That will be one of the great advances. Imagine a mechanism which takes a sample of a voice, perhaps from your own memory, and extrapolates a narator's voice from the sample. Choose Grandpa or Winston Churchill to read to you."

Alan S. Gardner, Milo, IA

"Libraries will become time travel portals, and readers will become adventurers, taking a trip to the time period during which the book was written. Immersion into the time period will allow readers to have a more connected experience, and to better grasp the context wherein the book was created."

Shaina Dyson, Taylorsville, NC

"A grown man shrieks in horror! Frightened children cry throughout the museum as their teacher is carted off by paramedics. It was the first papercut this town has seen in decades. Horrible to think how just a century ago, children everywhere were being sliced daily in the pursuit of knowledge."

Kristopher Blake, Norristown, PA

"Touch the bump behind my ear, images of words readily appear. Favorite books to my delight, all within my line of sight. I am traveling today, so I command, "Autosay"! The Literary visions fade, replaced by voice narration (as I bade). Reading, a century changed, unlocked using our brilliant brain!"

Lisandra Sletton, Phoenix, AZ

"For children, the pastime of reading is challenged by other forms of communication and entertainment. In 100 years, traditional reading material (e.g., novels, etc) will be incorporated into multi-media experiences like video games allowing for both classics and new literary works to compete using the latest pop culture preferences."

Jade Harris, New York, NY

"In 100 years reading will be free. There will be no banned books and people of all ages will have access to the vast choices available. Currently taboo books will be discussed openly, and without hatred, amongst the literate."

Brittani Dayton, Mason, OH

Announcing the winners for the 10 Days in Google Books contest - Part II

Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 9:45 AM

Posted by Hicham Alaoui, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Books

Following our first announcement this week, here is the second set of winning entries for the 10 Days in Google Books contest. As a reminder, to enter the contest users had to submit a short essay describing what the experience of reading will be like in 100 years.

"It's Earth Memorial Day. Under the Martian sunset's romantic glow, Janet removes her shirt. "What's on your back?" her boyfriend Carl asks. "Part of a book. Did you know books once were printed on murdered biomatter? Isn't that awful? I temptatooed myself in memory of the trees..." "Um," says Carl."

Rachel Sealfon, Cambridge, MA

"Although I've been dead for 35 years, in 2109 my great-great-grandson and I read stories together through our telepresence system. He wrinkles his nose when I bring up a favorite story from my boyhood, leading me to chastise him, "don't judge an ebook by its icon."

Len Wanger, Chicago, IL

"We almost returned to paper, when the oil ran short and dear. The technologists saved us again, folks said they wouldn't, but their eink, memristors and led lamps take less power than their solar cells and thermal engines make. We don't read by candlelight. But we almost did."

Kim Reece, Duarte, CA

"I placed my book on the nightstand next to me and turned off the light. Then in a soft voice, my book picked up where it had left off earlier in the evening. Bookmark it please, I asked the book, and it hummed in quiet, literate, satisfaction."

Michael Gillespie, Charleston, SC

"I pause, run my thumb across the pages and smell the paper. Tonight a classic. Finding it on the shelf, I gently tap my book to its spine. Pages dance and the cover transforms, firmware upgraded so embossing works nicely. Rewrite complete. Config loaded, coffee brewed. Call me old fashioned."

Gavin Cheng, Silppery Rock, PA

"7/27/2109 - Dear Diary, "Someone" swiped my reading glasses today and I had to use the PUBLIC glasses at the libary. Disgusting! The ancient things didn't even accept retinal commands so I had to use the 'page' button. My brother is SO dead!"

Alan Hald, Adams, NE

"Even my great-great-grandchildren will still need paper books to read, because somehow 'Goodnight Moon' is not the same unless the child can take it to bed and slowly love the book to death. Every child who has this experience will never stop loving physical books as mementos of childhood."

David Smedberg, Washington DC

"She was late for class, stuffing books into her bag: biology, chemistry, the complete works of Shakespeare, the English dictionary, the every language everywhere dictionary, the Galactic Encyclopedia. As she strode out the door, ping! A newly discovered chemical element had been added to her chemistry book."

Sonja Harpstead, New York, NY

"Reading (PA city, Monopoly railroad, ESL) will (intention, testament, onomastics) no (negative, nitrous oxide, kana) longer (Dan Fogelberg, unrequited love, anatomy) be (degree, copula, beryllium) linear (y = mx + b, Cretan script, asteroid detection)!"

Sandy Lawrence, Delanson, NY

"Power: ON Resume: The Great Gatsby page 17 Activate reader theme: Classical 20th Century--Gilded Age. Music: ON Contextualizer: ON [..her eyes moved gradually out into the velvet dusk]. User-initiated Query: velvet dusk. Accessing Wikipedia: Dusk "Dusk is the beginning of darkness in the evening." End query. Resume reading."

Gabriel Loupe, Boston, MA

Announcing the winners for the 10 Days in Google Books contest!

Wednesday, October 28, 2009 at 9:23 AM

Posted by Hicham Alaoui, Associate Product Marketing Manager, Google Books

In his 1901 book Anticipations, H.G. Wells predicted how the world would develop in the 20th century. Here with a different set of predictions are the winners from the 10 Days in Google Books contest we held this summer.

To enter the contest, users had to submit a short essay describing what the experience of reading will be like in 100 years. After combing through some tens of thousands of submissions, we're excited to present the winners, who will each receive a Sony Reader.

The winning entries range from science fiction to drama, from heartfelt to humorous, and demonstrate the wide range of thought and uniquely personal connection that people have with books and reading. The entries were selected based on a number of creative factors including originality and expression of the theme. (Please note, the opinions expressed in these essays in no way represent the view of Google or those of us working on the Google Books team.)

With that said, congratulations to our first 10 winners. Stay tuned this week for the other winning entries!

"A completely immersive experience. Seeing, feeling, smelling. I run, I jump, I fall. My heart races as I experience it. And then, as I get closer... "Stop reading" I hear. "Come do your chores." I'll have to land tomorrow."

Richard Stewart, Famington, UT

"Books will still exist for those who have not chosen The Implant. The rest of us will mentally turn on the Neural Implant Knowledge Stream anytime we like and let it run subconsciously. We'll control the "volume" mentally, allowing us to tune in -or out- the things around us."

George Beecher, Lawrenceville, GA

"When you walk by a book in the bookstore or your home library, the books, if determined to be of interest to you, will call out your name and given a short description of themselves to you."

Jacob P. Silvia, Houston, TX

"In twenty-one-o-nine, they'll make a new vine. It will flex and twist and sway, and words will form in such a way. When news is bad, and life is hard, you'll read it from your luscious yard. It's hard to feel any despair, when standing in the garden air."

Richard Call, Sonora, CA

"Books will come equipped with music players specially designed to play complementary music to the books as they are being read. Music will change as different events take place, much like the soundtrack to a movie."

Shaina Dyson, Taylorsville, NC

"In 100 years, most modern literature will be written by apes. Through the haphazardly combined efforts of global warming and cosmetic testing gone horribly wrong, apes will develop the skills to read and write. Many critics will be bludgeoned to death for bad reviews by tortured ape artists."

Erik Good, San Jose, CA

"In 100 years, reading will still be a popular way to wind down from a hard day. Stories will be read to sleepy children before being tucked in. The way we access books might change, but those who love reading will continue to make it a part of daily life."

Jennifer Garcia, Hartford, CT

"Reading a book will be prescribed as a relaxing activity for folks with a variety of health concerns. There will emerge a variety of "reading spas" where people can go to read books in calming environs."

Adam Ness, Long Beach, CA

"My daughter will celebrate her 100th birthday in the year 2109. Aging vision will not deny her the pleasure of reading a book; rather, the whole library of human civilization will be accessible and portable. Textual appearances will adapt. Pages will flood with summoned content: words, images, and sounds interacting."

Andy Unrein, Scottsbluff, NE

"100 years from now reading will still inspire, inform, and entertain. Students will have not only the local library but the entire world's library at their fingertips. Information abundance will be organized so as to be useful and relevant, leading to informed decision making."

Nadine DeMartino, Anaheim, CA