Some Publishers Warm to Google Book Search, from the Chronicle
This has been so effective, says a representative of Oxford University Press, that “321,000 times in the last two years, people have clicked on an Oxford book saying ‘I want to buy this.’ We spent nothing to do that. That’s why we’re a big fan of this program.”
This is an interesting (one presumes) unintended consequence of Google Book Search, that by directing traffic to university presses, it’s actually increasing the sales of scholarly monographs. Frankly, anything that can increase the sales of scholarly monographs is going to be a good thing for university presses, most of which are on major life support these days.