Google Books and Purchasing

I must have taken out The Interpretation of Cultures at the library at some point, or, perhaps more likely, have bits of it in a photocopied course pack somewhere. I went to look it up the other day after being reminded of how thick description might apply to my thesis and I quickly found it on google books, read a few pages, and added it to my amazon wish list. Today I was at the bookstore and I picked it up there. Quite a circuitous route to a purchase, but I do have to say that reading those few pages on google books was key.

Now I’ve certainly looked up other books and not been inclined to purchase them, but it will be interesting to see what impact this has as availability increases. I can definitely see it having the opposite effect when you can preview a shoddy book you might have otherwise purchased or borrowed. Not that I’m an ideal book consumer. These days I only buy books that I’ve read from the library or in some format before and I know I’ll need to reference in the future, except the (very) occasional novel.