Google Book Search Offers Embedded Previews

From the official announcement: “We’re launching a set of free tools that allow retailers, publishers, and anyone with a web site to embed books from the Google Book Search index. We are also providing new ways for these sites to display full-text search results from Book Search, and even integrate with social features such as ratings, reviews, and readers’ book collections. By providing tools that help sites connect readers with books in new and interesting ways, we hope publishers and authors will find even wider audiences for their works.”

According to Google, this is primarily meant for online retailers, although the service is available to everyone. Google also announced partnerships with the University of California and the University of Texas, and a large number of companies and institutions allow them to embed book previews into their online catalogs. The number of universities, publishers, and retailers that take advantage of this service is only going to grow as more institutions take advantage of the new API. Hat tip to Mashable. [JH]