I've just spent an hour playing around with Google Books and creating my own library. I think you could spend a lot of time checking things out and wasting time, but I can straight away see three very practical ideas of how I can use this in my job. I'm sure over time I will be able to make even more use of it, but as a beginner I can:
1. check out reviews for new books, especially in regards to appropriate age groups, and also for the CBC shortlist;
2. share my library with my staff. I have created a Shortlist shelf (for CBC awards) on my page, I will email the link to them, run a very short PD session on how to use Google Books, and they will be able to look at the shortlist titles and decide which ones they want to read to their classes;
3. teach my staff how to use Google Books to find class novels or professional reading titles they might be interested in.
I can also see great opportunities for the kids to use Google Books as a way to share reviews. Perhaps teachers could set up "class libraries" where they could add class novels etc. They could write group and individual reviews and share their libraries with other classes. What a great way to get them talking about books!
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Now that's a great idea - the one about students using Google Books to publish their reviews to the world! They would get such a buzz from that. Fabulous!
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