Still Waiting for a Real Google Book Search API

For years on this blog, at conferences, and even in direct conversations with Google employees I have been agitating for an API[1] (application programming interface) for Google Book Search[2]. (For a summary of my thoughts on the matter, see my imaginatively titled post, “Why Google Books Should Have an API[3].”) With the world’s largest collection of scanned books, I thought such an API would have major implications for doing research in the humanities. And I looked forward to building applications on top of the API, as I had done with my Syllabus Finder[4].