Library solutions provider Ex Libris Group, Israel, has announced the successful integration of 'About this book' pages from Google Book Search service into Ex Libris products. Ex Libris and several of its customers collaborated closely to develop and implement this feature in their libraries. In less than one week, Ex Libris customer sites - including Kansas State University, the University of Iowa, the University of Texas at Austin, and Universita degli Studi di Padova in Italy - went live with this new service.
Using a new 'viewability' application programming interface (API) supported by Google Book Search, library patrons can now enhance their findings with Google Book Search features such as full text, book previews, cover thumbnails, and a mashup from Google Maps linking pages in a book describing a specific place to its location on the world map. Use of this 'viewability' API has been added to the Ex Libris Primo discovery and delivery solution, SFX context-sensitive link resolver, and the Aleph and Voyager integrated library systems.
Libraries running Primo will now display a link from an item's detailed view to Google Book Search 'About this book' pages when such pages exist. SFX will feature a new Google Book Search target, which will alert users when results from Google Books are available for OpenURL book requests and will link to these results. Links to the 'About this book' pages will also appear in the full display of a record in Aleph and either the brief or full view in Voyager.
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