Google has unveiled new features in Google Book Search. These include increased connections between books and a personal library. Starting to sound like another service? Maybe Shelfari combined with Amazon? Throw in Google’s search and categorization expertise to make quite the stew. Does anyone else see amazing implications and uses for English classes?
A couple of weeks before school, the teacher puts the assigned reading in a collection a couple of weeks before the course. (As I have done for my English class) Then, students have the ability to look through the list; seeing what will be read. There is even an RSS feed which can be subscribed to. Imagine a couple of weeks into the class, you are discussing the Odyssey and are interested in how many different interpretations there are. Google has you covered with a “Popular passages” feature. Quite simply, it shows popular passages from this book and what other books it appears in. There is tremendous opportunity as a method of investigating popular lines in poetry - or clichés. Google has now established itself as a leader in the field of book categorization, organization, and sharing.
Thanks for mentioning Shelfari (even if it’s just a little mention at the end of a post).
At any rate, we just launched a new blog widget at www.shelfari.com/widget
Try it out and let me know what you think.
–Dave
Thanks to stopping by, Dave. You are doing great things with Shelfari! I love the direction that you are going in.
However, one feature I would really like to see is the ability to easily share exactly what you are reading at the time. In addition, the whole “shelf” idea is cool, but should it apply to books from libraries?
Regardless, I hope to get my whole library into Shelfari soon. Then, I’ll implement the widget. I also like your Facebook App.
Keep it up!