The Link: http://books.google.com/
What is it?
Google Books is an online database where you can go and search books online. Depending on the copyright laws, you can obtain a preview of the book or even read the full text.
How do I use it?
You can search Google Books just like any search engine. You can type in a keyword that you are looking for, for example: If you are studying butterflies in your second grade class, type in “monarch butterflies” (the more detail the better!) and Google Books will pull up a list of related books/texts for you! Some you may be able to read many pages of, others you will just get a quick text clip.
Once you have a Google account set up (https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount), you will have access to My Library. As you browse books, magazines, journals, and other resources in the database, you can bookmark them as favorite and even write reviews. You can create a “bookshelf” where you can read books, rate and review them, and share them with the world!
Can I buy the books?
It depends. Some books are available to purchase as an e-book (electronic book) while others must be bought in print, like Curious George below.
See on the left hand side that there is a list of online places to order the book from. The green price of $3.55 is the lowest price.
If the book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given Google Books permission, you'll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it's in the public domain, you're free to download a PDF copy.
What if I don’t want to buy the book but I still want to read it?
That’s why we have libraries! With some books, under the sidebar that says “Get this book” there may be “Find in a library.” When you click on this link, Google Books takes you to WorldCat:
The book you are looking for will come up. Enter your location (zip code) and WorldCat will pull up a list of libraries in your area with the book you’re looking for!
Classroom Use:
What a great resource for themed-units or certain times of the year. Teachers could go online, find a list of books related to their topic, and either buy or check them out from local libraries. Even easier, teachers could also take their list and see if their building carries the books. The books are available online in full view so you could use the database for story time or to show certain pictures on your screen in class. Older students can search the database with teacher supervision to find books related to a research topic or for a book report. Teachers can use the database to find books that a particular student may be interested in, as well. The ways Google Books can be used goes on and on so check it out!
Super cool fact:
Many of the books in the Google Books database are scanned using the Elphel 323 camera at a rate of 1,000 pages per hour!
Google Filetype Searching
The Link: www.google.com
What is it?
When searching Google, you may type in the word “frog life cycle” and come up with books, PDFs, videos, and many other forms of media. What if you only wanted to see PDF files on the frog life cycle? No problem! With Filetype Searching, you can easily narrow your search to the exact type of file you are looking for.
How can I use it?
In the space where you type your keyword for your search, you will follow it with a space and then “filetype: ___” See the example and codes to enter in the blank below:
frog life cycle filetype:ppt and then click search
Pretty neat, huh?
What are the codes I use to type after “filetype:”?
The most commonly used ones are…
• PDFs: pdf
• Microsoft Excel: xls
• Microsoft Powerpoint: ppt
• Microsoft Word: doc
Want to learn more? Here’s a great link to some of Google’s top search features:
http://www.google.com/help/features.html
