Amazon Plan Would Allow Text Search Of Books

emmastory writes "The New York Times is running a story (free registration required) about a new development at Amazon - they plan to assemble "a searchable online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction." Users would only be able to read a certain portion of the text from any one book, but it sounds promising nonetheless. The Times article suggests that this is part of a larger strategy to compete with Google and Yahoo by making Amazon an authoritative source of information on everything book-related."

Comments

Re:Brilliant idea

[tomstdenis]

True enough, but quality is of question too. Not all Calculus textbooks, for example, are of equal educational value.

It would be very valuable to be able to open a chapter of the book and give a read over it, you know, like in a real fucking bookstore.

The problem being that stores [brick and mortar] like Chapters.ca stock only self-help dime-a-dozen whim-of-the-minute books. In fact when the local chapters first open you could walk in and buy TAOCP [I did :-)]. Now you would be lucky to get a calculus/algebra/science/anything textbook and at best you can only find those "cheat sheet" books which basically tell you how to solve every problem [but not why the solution works].

For the most part people have to blindly trust some review from "BigGuy4477" about the value of a 89$ textbook...

Tom

RealLife?

[ryanoo]

The publishers said they have been guardedly cooperative.

How authors will react is another question.

Isn't this what happens in the RealWorld? You walk into a bookstore, open it up, read a few pages and make a decision on whether or not you want to buy it?

I think publishers and authors would be rather short-sighted to not allow potential customers shop online the same way they shop in brick and mortar stores.

Re:Brilliant idea

[whatch durrin]

From my experience with non-fiction (college textbooks) in a "brick-and-mortar" store, the books are usually sealed shut with plastic wrap. That only goes for new books, of course.

Besides, in college you usually don't have a choice about which textbook to use for the class. I guess you could always purchase supplemental books, but those are usually out of the price range/interest level/time scope of many college students.