Friday, April 4, 2008

Lookybooks -- Useful or not?

Lookybooks is a website that shows pictures books in their entirety. Its mission is to offer people a look at the entire book before they buy it. At first look I thought what a great idea and we could direct our children there to actually read the book online for free, but alas, on closer look that won't work. The books load quickly and you turn the pages simply by clicking on the book, but the print is too small to read.

I know a good picture book doesn't need words, but more often than not, words are needed to tell the story. If you increase the font size for this website it does not increase the size of the book. If you zoom in, it becomes so fuzzy it is not readable. For librarians purchasing books for their patrons it is important to be able to read the story. So for me, I don't see much use for this website in my job of book selection.

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