I was off-line yesterday because of a Very Important Thing: the Big Sister played a lamb in the St. John’s Playgroup’s Christmas pageant. In the intervening space, Google’s doing some things with books [via Jon Udell and Jenny Levine]. Jon pointed out some interesting details on Google Scholar that I hadn’t noticed: links to WorldCat and to normal Google results when the citation is a book. After looking at that, I wandered over to Amazon’s entry for By the Sword and, paying attention to things other than what’s above the fold, noticed these tidbits.
- an onMouseOver event on the book image, to aid Search Inside this Book
- the first sentence is quoted under the book’s title
- citations
- The author is an Amazon reviewer, and responds to comments on his book.
In its article on Google+Libraries, The Wall Street Journal quotes Richard Sarnoff, president of Random House Ventures, who apparently does not understand links.
“Providing a citation is one thing. Linking to the page of the text is something else.”
No, it’s not. A precise citation tells you exactly where to find the source.