Find Books Using Google Books

What is Google Books?

Google is working with libraries and publishers to digitize and index many books so they are searchable. Google Books helps you learn more about books you already know about and discover new books of interest to you. Once you find a helpful book you can see similar books or find the book in a library.

Why would you use it?

Google Books is a great tool to use for your research. Have you ever tried to find books in the UT Libraries catalog but didn’t get the results you wanted using your search term? Are you looking for books that mention a specific person, place or thing? Do you have some information on a particular title but need to find out more about it?

Google Books helps you find books that mention your term anywhere in the text and let’s you discover books on similar topics. Whether you are searching for a book you already know about or looking to explore books on a topic

More tips on using Google Books for research and assignments.

How to search in Google Books

Google Books works like Google Web Search. When you search in Google Books you are searching the text of all books and magazines in Google’s index.  This is not all the books in the world, just over 10 million of them.  Enter search terms and click the Search Books button to return books where your term is mentioned. 

Understanding your results

Scroll through your results to see books that match your search.  The results page will show all books that match your search; you can modify this to only display books with Limited preview and full view so you can search through them for other relevant search terms.

When you select a result, it will take you to that book if a preview or full view is available and show you where your search term appears in the book.

For most results, there are 2 tabs:  About this book and Preview this book

Preview This Book

• Different views
  
  

  Full View:  Google provides information about the book and you are able to view any and all pages from that particular book.  This applies to books that are out of copyright (generally before 1923 in the US) or books that the publisher or author has asked to make the book fully viewable.
  For books out of copyright, you can download, save and print a PDF version of the book.   All magazines found in Google Books are fully viewable.

  Limited Preview:  If the publisher or author has given permission, Google provides information about the book and a limited number of pages to view.  The publisher or author determines how many pages will be available to view. 

  Snippet View:  Google provides information about the book and a “snippet” of a few lines of text, to show where your search terms appear in the book.

  No Preview Available:  Google provides information about the book, but is unable to show any part of the book.

• Search in This Book 

  You can search within a book by entering a word or phrase in the Search in this book box. This is helpful for locating specific terms or topics in the book.  Enter a search term and Google Books will identify pages where that term appears, and show your search term highlighted.  This shows you the context of where your search term appears in the book.

• Google Books Reader

  This reader allows you to view a limited number of book pages in your browser.  Zoom in or out on pages, view as one or two pages and flip to the next page.

About This Book

Provides general information about the book and its contents.  Points to important pages within the book and links out to books, articles and websites that mention the book.  Learn more about how About This Book will help you in your research.

Finding the book in UT Libraries

In the About this book tab, use the “Find in a library” link to see if UT Libraries or another library has the book.  This will link you to that books record in WordCat, a catalog of the collections of many libraries around the world.  Scroll down to the Borrow or obtain a copy section.  This will show nearby libraries that have a copy of this book.

NOTE:  Sometimes University of Texas Libraries has a different edition of the same book.  WorldCat may only list University of Texas Libraries if UT has that exact edition. Use Google Books to see if there are other editions of the same title using the About this Book to see what libraries hold that edition.

Advanced Google Books

Using Advanced Search will produce more accurate results because you can refine your search.  This is helpful if you are looking for a specific item that you know some information about; you can limit your results by title, author, publisher, publication date or ISBN number.  Narrow a broad topic search by limiting to books written on a certain subject in a specific language.

Personalized Features

Customize Google Books to assist in your research.  When you are signed in to a Google Account, you can add any book you find to a personal library.  Write notes or label books to organize sources for your assignments or rate and review books in your collection.  Search just within the books in your library.  This virtual collection of books is available online whenever you are signed in to your account and you can share the library with friends or classmates.  Learn more about Google Books My Library.

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