Have you seen http://print.google.com/ ?? Google’s rather ambitious project to scan and index millions upon millions of printed materials (ie books!!) The library is relatively small at this point, but you can see how it’s going to work. I searched for “Elmore, Ohio” and got an excerpt from a ghost book about the headless motorcycle man!! Lots of potential here… Unfortunately, they’re being sued by the “Book Guild.” There’s more about that here, but I think Google’s site is actually in the Guild’s best interest! I mean, what better way to find a book that you want?? I can’t read books online, or even offline on the computer. I like paper books. If I searched for something, found it, read and found the excerpt relavant, I’d buy the book! Isn’t that what the guild wants??
And if you’re nuts about Google, or even just interested in their technology, make the Googleblog part of your weekly reading. Good stuff there! http://googleblog.blogspot.com/
1 comment September 23 2005 5:14 am | Pepperguy | Grant
I also can’t read books online. But, if it were available from Google, I have to admit that I’d take the lazy way out and just print the whole thing instead of buying it. All in all, I’ve thought it is a cool concept (scanning books that is), but the applications will raise more issues (as they already have) than they’re worth.