The estimated reading time for this post is 4 minutes
When you search for a book on Google, you may be looking for links to buy it in print or as an ebook. But now Google search results can show you whether a book you’re searching for is available as an ebook at your local library.
By seeing this information in Google search results, you can borrow an ebook from your library without ever leaving the comfort of your home. Or your office. Or your hotel room. Or wherever you are when you want a book to read…
How to Use Google to Find Out Whether an Ebook Is Available from Your Library
You can search for an ebook using either Google’s website, or the Google app.
The search results will show you a knowledge card with information about the ebook. You can read a sample of the book and see where you can buy it.
The card will also show you an option to borrow the ebook, if your library has an ebook edition of the book.
If you share your location, Google can figure out where you are to show you your local libraries. Or you can change the location by clicking or tapping “Edit location” and typing the name of the town or the zip code of your local library.
If the ebook is available at your library, you’ll see a link you can tap or click on and you’ll be taken to the page for that ebook.
If you have a library card for that library, you can borrow the ebook directly from the website without having to go to the library.
If the ebook isn’t available through your local library, you’ll see this notice in the card:
Google’s search results show ebooks available via OverDrive. While your library might have the ebook available via OverDrive, there may be a waiting list to borrow the book.
To learn more about OverDrive, check out => OverDrive: Get Free Ebooks and Audiobooks 24/7.
Calling all U.S. bookworms! Now you can take a look at what e-books are available to borrow at your local library, right in Search. 📚 pic.twitter.com/jxiripTUMh
— Google (@Google) September 18, 2017
Only in the United States for Now
For now, Google search showing ebook availability is only available in the United States.
If you’re outside the US, you can search for ebooks available at libraries around the world using OverDrive, which is available in over 34,000 libraries worldwide.
Your Thoughts
Are you glad that Google search results show ebooks available at local libraries? Does this make you more likely to borrow an ebook from the library?
Share your thoughts in the Comments section below!
*iPad Ebook image courtesy of newsonline via Flickr and Creative Commons
iOS 11.1.1 Update
Some iPhone and iPad users were reporting a problem when they typed the letter “i” on their keyboards, Instead of the letter “i”, the letter appears as A[?]…
In fact, the Ohio State football team joked about the bug at Saturday’s game:
Ohio State football trolling Apple for glitch in iOS 11.1
O – H – A[?] – Ohttps://t.co/WloZRfAmhw
— Patrick Hummer (@PatrickHummer) November 12, 2017
While many sites offered solutions for the issue (other than avoiding using the letter “i” when you write), Apple has released an update to iOS to fix this problem. iOS 11.1.1 is now available as an update for iPhones and iPads.
According to Forbes, this update has improved the battery life for some devices, while draining the battery for others. The site recommends that you update if you have a problem typing an “i”, otherwise you may want to wait until the next update.
See, Forbes, Apple iOS 11.1.1 Release: Should You Upgrade?
Twitter 280 Character Update
The update to Twitter in September that gave certain users a 280 character limit has been expanded to everyone on Twitter for all supported languages, including English. That’s right, your character limit for all current and future tweets is now 280 instead of 140.
Unless you are tweeting in character languages Chinese, Japanese and Korean. Twitter is keeping the character limit at 140 for those languages, it says, “because cramming is not an issue in these languages. In fact, these languages have always been able to say more with their Tweets because of the density of their writing systems.”
Twitter announced the increased character limit in a blog post titled Tweeting Made Easier. From the initial test period Twitter found that people who had access to more characters were spending less time trying to shorten their messages, while very few people were hitting the 280 character limit with their tweets, Twitter found that “Only 5% of Tweets sent were longer than 140 characters and only 2% were over 190 characters.”
Reactions to the change were quite mixed:
🌟 . * . 🌙
*
* . 🛰️ . ✨ *
. *
Thanks @Twitter, we can
always use more space 🚀
. . .
. * 🌏 *
🌞
* ☄️#280characters— NASA Goddard (@NASAGoddard) November 8, 2017
I will NEVER use 280 characters nor will I favorite or retweet a tweet with them. THIS IS MY FIGHT SONG
— christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) November 8, 2017
Read more about the change at: Twitter Doubles Character Limit to 280 for Tweets.
Hello Carolyn,
This sounds pretty cool 🙂
That’s true Google is changing every day, not just technically but also it is coming up to provide ease to their customers
on almost every scale.
Its great to have ebook on a go and can enjoy that just by sitting out in our home or office which is a great innovative
brought up by Google.
Sad to know that they only active in the USA right now, hope they hit the Asian countries soon.
Thanks for the share.
Shantanu.
Hi Shantanu, Yes, this is a helpful service from Google that may remind people to borrow ebooks from their local library instead of spending money on buying them. I do hope that this service expands around the world.
In the meantime, be sure to check out OverDrive that does reach around the world.