Who's using it: Arcadia

  • Arcadia Publishing makes local history books accessible online, hoping to increase sales by allowing customers to connect with their hometowns.

  • Partnering with Google Book Search, Arcadia integrated the API to let site visitors preview book content, like family names and landmarks.

  • This integration benefits both customers and staff, saving time and aiding in book discovery and historical research.

  • Customers can now easily find relevant books mentioning their family or local landmarks before purchasing.

  • Arcadia staff can efficiently access book content online, eliminating the need for physical archive searches.



Monica Pelletier, Marketing Manager, Arcadia Publishing

"Our books connect people with their hometowns and we hope that giving them a look inside to see family, friends and landmarks will increase our sales of each book."



Who They Are

Arcadia Publishing’s mission is to make history meaningful, to celebrate and preserve the heritage of America’s people and places, and to deliver a level of personalized customer service that is unique in today’s business world.

Google Book Search and Arcadia Publishing

Arcadia Publishing partnered with Google Book Search when the site was just launching and has been extremely happy with the traffic and sales that were generated through the relationship. Now, with the API integration, visitors to the Arcadia site itself can get a glimpse into the history of their town—look inside to see family, friends and landmarks—which Arcadia hopes will increase sales.

Since launching the integration, customers have been excited to know they can see if their family name is mentioned in the book before they buy it. It’s also allowed them to find other books that they didn’t know had their family information.

As it turns out, not only did Arcadia's customers benefit, but its staff quickly saw unexpected value as well. Instead of going to the hard-copy archive to reference an image or caption, the Arcadia staff is now able to look-inside the book without leaving the site. According to Monica Pelletier at Arcadia, "It’s saving a lot of time!"