Book Information Sources

Staff -- Library Journal, 1/1/1998

One of life's more pleasant ironies is that the web, although often described as a blow to books and reading, itself contains a wealth of book-related information. This month's column focuses on book-related web sites that complement printed resources and are able to help both librarians and library patrons find a good read.

A plethora of book-focused sites can be found on the Internet, including online bookstores, book reviews, genre pages, and awards lists. This information can be a special boon for busy reader's advisory librarians. Most people still walk into a library expecting to find a good book, and the web can help deliver.

BOOKWIRE (http://www.bookwire.com/)
Date Visited: 12/2/97
Developer/Provider: Reed Elsevier Business Information
BookWire bills itself as "the book industry's most comprehensive and thorough online information source," and it generally lives up to that description. It stands out from competing book megasites by providing independent content and well-categorized links.

Browsers might best start by going to the Index, which organizes both BookWire's own content and 7000 selected outside links into broad categories. Those categories include booksellers, publishers, libraries, and "other book resources"--which is itself broken down into 16 separate and extensive categories, from book awards to writing resources. While helpful, the annotations for those selected links often read like promotional blurbs. BookWire currently has only author/title/publisher search capability but plans to add subject searching for both its own content and the BookWire Index. For the more Internet-savvy, the BookWire Navigator is a good alternative to the Index.

BookWire provides much current book news, highlighting on its front page articles from publications like Publishers Weekly and Library Journal (their online versions are hosted on BookWire, with which they share a parent corporation). It provided extensive coverage, for example, of the Frankfurt Book Fair, and its newish "Flap" section offers an insider's perspective on book news. Publishers Weekly's best sellers lists are also available here.

BookWire also can be used to find author information and book reviews from its "partners" (see e.g., Hungry Mind Review and Boston Book Review, below), as well as from America Online's The Book Report), though Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble (see below) offer more reviews. Its "Publishers' Spotlight" section--a paid promotion--groups titles by topic, providing reviews and review excerpts.
Pros/Cons: BookWire compiles a wealth of timely book-related information/news into one site. The annotations for sites could be more analytical and provision of reviews more extensive.
Bottom Line: The best starting point for book-focused Internet material.

BOOKBROWSER (http://www.bookbrowser.com/)
Date Visited: 12/2/97
Developer/Provider: Janet Lawson, MLS student at Indiana University, and Cynthia Orr, Manager, Geauga West Branch Library, Chesterfield, Ohio
BookBrowser, created by librarians, collects fiction reading lists, arranged by genre, series, region, topic, and so on. The site, strongest on genre fiction, helps reader's advisors in public libraries, serving as a less costly (although less thorough) alternative to commercial CD-ROM or online subscription services.

The best starting place for browsers is the "Reading Lists" section, which includes "Series & Sequels," "Place & Time," and "Best of...." These are further broken down into categories such as "Sleuths by Occupation" and "Mysteries by Region."

The site also contains a good bit of author information, providing a helpful, if incomplete, list of author pseudonyms, which links to lists of their books. BookBrowser also includes links to many author web sites, including those set up by fans. Searches seem to work best when restricted to title or author, although keyword searches are allowed.

BookBrowser also provides lists of forthcoming novels; some titles are linked to reviews written by BookBrowser's staff. The reviews again are heavily weighted toward genre material, especially mystery and sf.
Pros/Cons: Users can easily and logically explore genre fiction. The book lists, however, are uneven in quality and comprehensiveness.
Bottom Line: This site provides the best online access to multiple genre book lists.

AMAZON.COM (http://www.amazon.com/)
Date Visited: 12/2/97
Developer/Provider: Amazon.com, Inc.
Even users uncomfortable with purchasing items online can find useful information at this site to take to their neighborhood bookstore or library. Users might begin with Amazon.com's instructions for the first-time visitor, which link to and explain the major features of the site. Categories in this section include best sellers, books by subject, and a good list of major book award winners.

Amazon.com's searchable index claims to offer 2.5 million titles and is a good place to find information on new and forthcoming books. Visitors can also browse by category to find titles of interest. Its "Reviewed in the Media" section allows patrons to locate titles that they might have seen in print publications, though full-text is not necessarily provided. Alternatively, reviews connected to the titles found through Amazon.com's search screens include both excerpts from print reviews sources (including full text from Kirkus) and reviews written by site visitors.

Besides allowing visitors to post their own reviews, Amazon.com takes advantage of the online medium by hosting a variety of structured message forums, quizzes, and online contests. The site also includes links to author interviews and its own best sellers list.
Pros/Cons: Amazon.com offers a broad range of book information, especially patron reviews, through a well-designed interface. It can't match BookWire on news.
Bottom Line: More than a bookstore, this serves as a gateway to a variety of book-related information, though BookWire covers more ground.

Alternate Sites

• Barnes and Noble
  Barnes and Noble, which settled its lawsuit with Amazon.com over the latter's claim to be the "world's biggest bookstore," continues the battle in spirit and online. Barnes and Noble's search interface links to over one million titles, and, like Amazon.com, the site also hosts author interviews and tries to build an online community. In some cases, this site provides more full-text reviews than Amazon.com, and it offers more book news.

• Publicity Information from Ingram's Book Kahoona
• Authors on the Highway
• Book Stacks: Author's Pen
  Ingram's "Book Kahoona" publicity section gives information on author tours, confirmation of movie and TV tie-ins, and dates of TV, radio, and print interviews with authors. It's a good source when someone asks, for example, about an author seen on Oprah. Authors on the Highway, a BookWire site, gives further author tour information. The site is searchable and tends to complement Ingram's information, since neither is comprehensive. The Author's Pen, one section of an extensive online bookstore, provides links to over 850 individual author homepages webwide. The site also gives a brief biography and illustration of each author, as well as a bibliography.

• Chicago Tribune Books
• The New York Times Books
• Los Angeles Times Book Review
• The GateGuide: Word
  These newspaper sites provide not only daily reviews but the Sunday book review sections, plus other book-related information. Chicago Tribune also links to its own online book discussions and on- and offline literary events. Users of The New York Times will have to create a (free) login name and password to use the site--which will then recognize anyone logging in from the same machine, a useful feature at public terminals. It provides reviews, online discussions, book news, and the first chapters of some current works. Los Angeles Times also gives access to reviews, discussions, and news and is experimenting with newer technologies such as Real Audio in providing online audio author interviews. The Gate provides the San Francisco Chronicle Book Review as well as other Bay Area literary information.

• The Hungry Mind Review
• The Boston Book Review
• Salon Magazine--"Sneak Peeks"
  The Hungry Mind Review and The Boston Book Review are more literary publications than those above, and both have appeared in print for years. The Hungry Mind provides a selection of current and archived book reviews, plus a useful thematic selection of archived reviews, as well as author interviews. The Boston Book Review provides a helpful index of reviews broken down by genre. It also contains original fiction, poetry, essays, and interviews. Salon, an online magazine with a hip edge, offers a searchable collection of book reviews, both of popular and literary material.

• Books@Random
• BDD Book Group Corner
• Simonsays Reading Groups
• Penguin USA--It's a Great Time To Start a Reading Group
• Oprah Book Club Titles
  Publishers are slowly starting to get on the reading group bandwagon, as Oprah Winfrey spearheads a resurgence of interest in book clubs. Random House's Books@Random provides--as of early December--42 suggested book discussion titles with summaries and sample questions. Bantam's Book Group Corner provides 24 online reader's companions and a short introduction to starting a book discussion group, while Simon & Schuster's Simonsays gives another list of 35 titles with reading guides/discussion questions. Penguin USA has a short list of 14 suggested titles for discussion but tends to have fairly good discussion guides that include author information and interviews. It also includes a list of "500 Great Books by Women," as well as links to guides for romance reading groups. Finally, if nothing less than Oprah herself will do, ALA provides an up-to-date list of the Oprah titles, along with the next air date of her book club. Reading group aficionados might also check the BookWire Index for links to individual online groups.

• Interloc
• Bibliofind
  These two sites provide speedy searchable interfaces to the combined offerings of many rare and o.p. book dealers. Interloc claims to have a public database of over 3.1 million o.p. "books, maps, autographs, and ephemera." The site offers the search options under author, title, keyword, price, or any combination thereof. Each search retrieves a list of titles with pricing, condition, edition, keywords, and contact information, as well as the option to order online directly from the member dealer. Bibliofind, though fairly amateurish looking, nonetheless offers searchable access to a purported four million o.p. titles. Users can select many titles at once from retrieved lists without having to fill out separate order forms. Interloc and Bibliofind seem to offer fairly comparable databases.