Google Books can now be embedded into a web page in a similar way that a YouTube video is able to be embedded.

Besides the “nifty cool” aspect of this, I can see one element of this that should make anyone involved with library web pages interested:   what a wonderous add-on to an OPAC!  No longer would we be limited to a link to the book in Google, but our users can potentially browse through a book during their search!  Examples here and here.

According to the Embedded Viewer API Developers Guide, identifiers for the books can be ISBN, OCLC, LCCN, and Book Search Volume numbers, or the Google Book Search URL for one-off uses.

Here is an example for a particular item being presented in WordPress. Do a search for “Wilbur Wright” to see why I chose it:

via LISNews and Technology Bites for WP solution

I missed this last month, but a post on the LibraryLaw Blog suggests that book jackets may be protected under a clause in the copyright law aimed for advertisements and commentaries.

found via LISNews