I’ve been meaning to write this up for a few weeks now, but we somewhat recently had a demo at work from Bowker, focusing on their Books in Print product.
A lot of the features were a bit over my head, as I’m not directly involved with collection development or purchasing. But there was one idea that struck me as particularly cool:
Bowker maintains a list of all the books mentioned in the national media. Oprah’s book club, NPR, and a lengthy list of others. Cover images of the books are even available!
So if your library is a BiP subscriber, it is now possible to answer “What was that book on Oprah last year with the red cover?” at a glance.