The public library continues to be a wonderful resource, with many adapting to this day and age with various digital resources. As such, many offer ebooks in addition to their traditional counterparts. Google is now helping surface these online versions by showing ebooks that are available to borrow from your library.
This new feature appears in Google Search as part of the Knowledge Graph card. When searching for a book, the “Get Book” tab has a new “Borrow ebook” section. It lists public library systems near you with a link to open the webpage and borrow.
In my testing, tapping will open Overdrive or the service that your library uses to manage ebooks. An edit location button allows users to set a preference and show other libraries.
Meanwhile, Knowledge Graph cards for books on mobile appear to have been tweaked to adopt a similar interface redesign for movies, TV shows, and other entertainment-related searches.
Tabs play a bigger role and get docked when you scroll down, while there is a new “More by Author” section to show their other works. In this tab, books appear as cards featuring descriptions and previews.
There also appears to be a new design for “Book preview’ on mobile that features a carousel of pages, including the cover, title page, and the first 30 or so pages. On the web, it’s just a simple link to preview.
This ebook feature is already live and works on the mobile apps for Android and iOS, as well as the mobile and full web. For the moment, it is only available in the United States.
Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.
Comments