Browsing and searching for books at Google Book Search becomes even more better with the introduction of a few nifty features aimed at organizing and classifying the millions of books at Google’s Book Search portal. These new features makes Google Book Search more and more like a social site for books in the likes of LibraryThing, Shelfari and other social library sites.
First of these features is the enhanced book explorer portal where images of books (if available) are displayed. This simulates display counters in actual library setting. These images change everytime the page refreshed.
Next major feature enhancement is the addition of subject classification links which users can use to browse books on a particular subject. The subjects are classified into two major type of books, fiction and non-fiction. Under each major categories are the subject categories which displays results when doing the subject search function, “subject:”keyword”.
Another improvement in the Google Book Search is the “query refinement” when searching for books using a generic or broader term. So for example, if you search for SEO books using the keywork “search engine optimization”, the Book Search algorithm will display specific subject categories under SEO.
The Google Book Project has come along away since it was launched and having an ambitious objective of indexing all available books in the world, it’s a good thing that Google is coming up with better ways of finding and organizing these books in Google’s database. With these new features, Google is moving away from more popular social networks for books such as LibraryThing and Shelfari. This just emphasize the fact that the Google Book Search is being built not to be a social network but to become the world’s most comprehensive book database.
