Book-Related Sites on the World Wide Web Becoming More Sophisticated

BOZEMAN -- Once primarily offering access to library catalogs or ASCII texts of western classics, book-related sites on the World Wide Web now include highly graphical guides to publishers, bookstores, reviews, authors, libraries, etc. Access to the full text of any title you want is not yet here, but gleaning book or author information from these sites can help you avoid the empty mind syndrome when you step into a physical bookstore or library. In many cases, commercial book sites offer Web purchase options for the brave credit card holder.

One way to begin working through the maze of book information on the Web is with a visual map. The Internet Road Map to Books(http://www.bookport.com/b_roadmap.html) offers a graphic representation of various categories of information and their relationships. Since the Map is not comprehensive, explore additional finding aids by choosing the map's Book Resource Meta Sites link. BookWire (http://www.bookwire.com/), for instance, is a searchable site that offers author tour schedules, links to Web versions of review sources such as The Hungry Mind Review and The Boston Book Review, award and bestseller lists, library links, and many other amenities. Another finding aid, The Internet Book Information Center (http://sunsite.unc.edu/ibic/IBIC-homepage.html), bills itself as "an enthusiast publication...animated by a strong personal editorial perspective," and should be used accordingly.

Perhaps the most valuable information these finding aids lead you to is specific publisher and bookseller Web sites. Publisher sites abound and starting from the Publishers' Catalogues Home Page (http://www.lights.com/publisher/index.html) you get a feel for the international scope of your options. The service and entertainment features of these sites vary: many offer searchable catalogs such as the reference-oriented Gale Research (http://www.thomson.com/gale/default.html); others provide daily puzzles and author "visits" like the popular Bantam Doubleday Dell Online (http://www.bdd.com/home1/bddhome1.cgi).

One gateway to booksellers on the Web is BookWeb (http://www.ambook.org/), the American Booksellers Association (ABA) site that includes excerpts from the American Bookseller magazine, trade news from Bookselling This Week, and a searchable database of member bookstores in the US and worldwide. For instance, in the ABA database you'll find Powell's Bookstore (http://www.powells.com/) in Portland, Oregon, "one of the largest bookstores in the English-speaking world." Powell's invites you to search the "shelves" of their virtual location, create an electronic notepad, then place your order. Closer to home is the Missoula-based Book Exchange (http://www.montana.com/books/exchange/), offering Montana author and book information.

Of course, if you really don't want to leave your chair, purely virtual bookstores have also emerged. BookStacks Unlimited (http://www.books.com/scripts/news.exe), "your local bookstore, no matter where you live," provides an array of literary information, including a number of audio clips. Once you set up an account, use the site's Bookbag feature to collect titles of interest and retain them from session to session, whether you place an order or not.

For other subject-specific Web links, visit the Internet Resources section (http://www.lib.montana.edu/internet.html) of the MSU-Bozeman Libraries Web Services (http://www.lib.montana.edu/) site.

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