Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Amazon Plan Would Allow Text Search Of Books

Posted by Hemos on from the interesting-ideas dept.

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."

65 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Brilliant idea by seinman · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If this happens, maybe we'll finally be able to find books based on their actual content instead of the (usually pretty crappy) writups that Amazon does on them.

    1. Re:Brilliant idea by steelerguy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This looks like it is only for non-fiction. Usually not to hard to tell what a non-fiction book is about just by reading the title.

    2. Re:Brilliant idea by tomstdenis · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

      --
      Someday, I'll have a real sig.
    3. Re:Brilliant idea by Surak · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You can already do that to an extent on Amazon and on BN.com. For some books, they let you look inside at the Intro, table of contents, and sometimes a chapter or two. You can usually see the liner notes and front and back cover too.

      Very cool. I've purchased books based on the ability to look inside the book.

      Of course this *could* be great for college paper researchers, looking for a quote or two to stick in a research paper. Depends on how much meat you can really get at.

      If it weren't for copyright issues, I'd love to see libraries do something this. You already have the equivalent for magazine articles, but usually you have to either pay or actually go to the library to use their InfoTrac or whatever engine.

      --
      My journal has hot /. gossip.
    4. Re:Brilliant idea by stephenbooth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm far more likely to pay attention to the customer reviews than a write up from Amazon.

      I guess what I'm saying here is that if you buy a book from Amazon then please take a few minutes to write a quick review saying what you liked/hated about the book, it will help other people make a decision. I've found that Amazon are usually quite fair (well Amazon UK are) and will publish a negative review so long as it's clear and non-offensive. If you write "This book sux." it'll get dumped, something like "This book skips a lot of the detail you need for this sort of level." then it will probably get through.

      Even if I buy a book from somewhere else I'll usually write a review of it on Amazon.

      Stephen

      --
      "Don't write down to your readers, the only people less intelligent than you can't read" - Sign on Newspaper Office Wall
    5. Re:Brilliant idea by ceejayoz · · Score: 2, Informative

      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.

      Amazon.com has their "Look inside this book" feature on a lot of titles, which lets you read a scanned excerpt of the book and see what you think. Just like in a real fucking bookstore!

    6. Re:Brilliant idea by Lord_Dweomer · · Score: 4, Interesting
      "Amazon.com has their "Look inside this book" feature on a lot of titles, which lets you read a scanned excerpt of the book and see what you think. Just like in a real fucking bookstore!"

      Except in a 'real fucking bookstore' I can look through the table of contents to see if it has chapters that may sound interesting, and I can then read a little bit from a section of MY CHOOSING. I don't care what amazon wants me to see from a book, and yes I realize some is better than none, but the real beauty of a bookstore is to flip around the entire book with no restrictions and see if you like the whole thing.

      --
      Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
    7. Re:Brilliant idea by aziraphale · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually, most of the crappy writeups on Amazon are provided by the publisher, not Amazon at all. You're only looking at Amazon-originated content in the 'editorial reviews' section of a book page if it says 'Amazon.com' at the top. If it says 'From the Publisher', or 'Book Description', it's the publisher that provided it. This does, it must be said, stretch the definition of 'editorial reviews' somwehat.

      Oh, and the books Amazon promotes on its front page, or on section header pages, under headings like 'what we're reading this month' - Amazon doesn't put them there off its own bat - it's done in co-operation with publishers, with publishers buying placements with virtual money called 'co-operative marketing funds', which are allocated on the basis of how much money the publishers' books made for the ookstore the previous year. Same deal with physical bookstores of course - spend co-op money, and you can get your books 'face out' on the shelf (cover showing, rather than spine), or onto an 'end-cap' (a display shelf at the end of a row), or even onto a table display.

      A short time working in publishing is a great way to disabuse yourself of the notion that book stores know or care anything about the books they sell...

    8. Re:Brilliant idea by whatch+durrin · · Score: 5, Insightful
      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.

      --
      ***
      Radio Shack. You've got questions...we've got blank stares(TM).
    9. Re:Brilliant idea by Zerth · · Score: 2, Funny

      I wish they'd do this for fiction, although I know it'd be halfway impossible and it probably wouldn't cover out of print books. I've got at least one book that I can't remember the title/author but could quote enough passages or facts to find it.

      How many books could there be about a 1-eyed ex-programmer turned fencing instructor who was the original programmer of a computer made of cloned brain tissue that is the server for a MMRPG but has developed consciousness due to another ex-programmer who, dying of cancer, imprinted himself into the game just before he died. But he died partway through the process and, since he was a wizard in the game, summoned the consciousness of the computer into the game in an attempt to access past "saves" of himself to fill in the blank spots, but botches the spell causing the consciousness of the computer to lock in all the other players in the game as hostages. This causes management to abduct the original programmer and force him to go in to the game, using an unimplemented bard class, and convince the consciousness(who, due to some freudian complications, considers itself female and wants to bone the original programmer) to let everyone go.

      And that's just the first couple chapters. Given a chance to do a literal search I'd probably just quote a line the programmer says after realizing he still had root access when faced with a bunch of demons "go to hell go directly to hell do not pass go do not collect 200 credits" plus enough random words to narrow it down a bit(for example, partway through he searches for a set of Katana+Wakizashi that grants wishes and is guarded by a Medusa and that the cancer-programmer/wizard has a tortoise for a familiar).

      On the off chance anybody recognizes this book(from the late 80's early 90's I think) I'll give you all my mod points:)

    10. Re:Brilliant idea by FroMan · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Why don't you just go to the "real f---ing bookstore?"

      If you don't like how an online business does things, don't use the online business.

      If you don't realize the difference between a brick and mortar store providing physical access the the product and an online store providing a digital copy of the product, you need to get your head examined.

      Basically they would be giving the book away. My guess is that the publisher has a problem with that.

      Original point, if you don't like the rules, don't play the game.

      --
      Norris/Palin 2012
      Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
  2. Patent this by number_man · · Score: 5, Funny

    Shouldn't somebody patent this process before Bezos does??

    1. Re:Patent this by keyslammer · · Score: 2, Insightful

      IANAL, but I think now that they've announced it, it can't be patented (unless it already has been).

    2. Re:Patent this by ceejayoz · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IANAL, but I think now that they've announced it, it can't be patented (unless it already has been)

      That's funny. Oh... you're not trying to be funny.

      Have you missed the dozens of articles about people recently patenting things that've been around for 30+ years, then suing small businesses for cash?

      The USPTO seems to grant a surprising amount of patents on things that "can't be patented".

    3. Re:Patent this by keyslammer · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Have you missed the dozens of articles about people recently patenting things that've been around for 30+ years, then suing small businesses for cash?

      That's different: that's just blatant disregard for prior art. It's quite a another matter if you announce something in a huge press release and _then_ tried to patent it. You'd look like a moron because you yourself created the prior art! Not that this would stop Amazon...

    4. Re:Patent this by keyslammer · · Score: 3, Informative
      I think that you have 1 year from public annoucement to patent an idea.

      I must retract my former statement: you are correct. According to BitLaw:

      The most important rule, however, is that an invention will not normally be patentable if:
      • the invention was known to the public before it was "invented" by the individual seeking patent protection;
      • the invention was described in a publication more than one year prior to the filing date; or
      • the invention was used publicly, or offered for sale to the public more than one year prior to the filing date.


  3. speaking of searching with Amazon by Artifex · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Have you noticed that they now offer web searching as well, and are also generating third-party ads based upon what you're looking for?

    This development may bite them back - when I look for something on Amazon now, I often find in their ads that other people have the item cheaper. Amazon may get a nickel or quarter for the referral, but they lose the dollars from the markup.

    --
    Get off my launchpad!
    1. Re:speaking of searching with Amazon by Roark+Meets+Dent · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Try several dollars per used book sold via Amazon's system. If I recall correctly, I believe Amazon's profit margins are a good deal higher on used book sales that they process than on new books they sell themselves.

  4. Wonder how long before .... by binaryDigit · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ... someone writes a distributed bot to query targeting a specific book and sections to finally retrieve the entire book. If it's a distributed app, then it would be tougher for Amazon to block. You could even have it only go after certain parts of the books at different times to make it tougher. Now not to say that this is a good use of effort, but that never stopped anyone from doing such a thing before :)

    1. Re:Wonder how long before .... by WaKall · · Score: 2, Interesting

      If they limit search-inside to logged-in users, then this becomes more difficult. You'd need an amazon account (1:1 with email address) for each set of pages that you view. If it's 10 or so pages per account, then a 300 page book means you need 30 accounts.

  5. Amazon by jester · · Score: 5, Funny

    I remember when doing a search on Amazon for "Database Admin" returned the number 1 response of "The fine art of vaginal fisting" and the reviews that it prompted ... pushing this book up into the top 100 bestsellers. Now what would the ability to read some text from books do ;-)

  6. Perfect! by zapp · · Score: 4, Funny

    I always find it annoying when reading a paper boo when I can't Ctrl-F to find a certain segment.

    Now I can just hop online to amazon, do the search, it will tell me what page it's on, and I can go read it!

    --
    no comment
  7. OCR Be Damned! by Foofoobar · · Score: 3, Funny

    And minimum wage laborers in 3rd world countries find themselves scanning books into computers and correcting the text using crappy OCR technology for 12 hours a day. This is one job I'd be happy to export to India.

    --
    This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
    1. Re:OCR Be Damned! by buro9 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They'd probably try and get a few publishers on board so that they can be supplied with digital versions of the text. I can't imagine that they would OCR everything... so they'd negotiate what they could from the outset.

      This would be very easy for publishers to accomodate, and they would do so more willingly if the book was old (e.g. Origin Of Species, etc).

  8. O'Reilly on steroid? by UnderAttack · · Score: 5, Informative

    Would this be like OReilly's Safari online books on steroids? Safari is my favorite bookstore for a while now.

    --
    ---- join dshield.org Distributed Intrusion Detec
    1. Re:O'Reilly on steroid? by javatips · · Score: 2, Informative

      Safari is not a book store. It's a renting library where you can only get a section of a book at a time (unless you are permanently connected to the Internet).

      It would be a book store if you could buy and download a complete book so you can read it however it please you (online or offline, on-screen or off-screen).

    2. Re:O'Reilly on steroid? by Soko · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not exactly, I think.

      Safari is access to the whole content of the book on-line, as well as searching for text within that content as well as any other books they have available on-line. IOW, Safari is actually a superset of the Amazon thing, since you can pay to read the whole book, not just search through it for snippets and passages.

      I love Safari as well - saves shelf space, trees and frustration (because of the search function). I wouldn't want to read a novel on-line, since a paper book is a better interface for that, but for reference material about programming/networking/Operating Systems etc., Safari works well, since you're in front of a machine anyway. And IIRC, errata in the books is applied directly to the text on-line, and you get the latest edition without having to get another book, just updated content.

      The only time having all of your reference material on-line would be a problem is if you need ref. material to get your Cisco router that connects you to the Internet back on-line.

      Soko

      --
      "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
  9. Too bad ... by JSkills · · Score: 4, Interesting
    ... there was no mention of the actual search technology Amazon would be using to allow searching the text of such a large archive of books (why only non-fiction I wonder).

    Looks like they'll be going with a proprietary solution. Even though the article seems to indicate that Amazon is launching this new service as a response to Google's "Froogle" shopping search product, wouldn't partnering with Google make more sense for them?

    1. Re:Too bad ... by binaryDigit · · Score: 4, Insightful

      .. there was no mention of the actual search technology Amazon would be using to allow searching the text of such a large archive of books (why only non-fiction I wonder).

      This type of text searching has been around for a gazillion years and is not really that complex. It really depends on how flexible they want to make the searching. Case in point, wildcards. Google sacrifices flexibility by not allowing you to search on wildcards in their news searches in order to gain speed. Ditto for things like phrase searching, etc. The actual # of docs is pretty much irrelevant wrt search speed (at least directly). It depends more on the features you allow in your query language and the # of hits returned by each part of your query. Plus you're dealing with static data that can easily be distributed.

      The tough part of all this is getting the stuff in digital format. I assume for most current books it won't be a problem. The hassle would be older books that you'd actually have to OCR. Though once they're done, they would have a pretty valuable asset.

    2. Re:Too bad ... by ceejayoz · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Looks like they'll be going with a proprietary solution... wouldn't partnering with Google make more sense for them?

      You are aware that Google's a proprietary solution, right?

      Just because Slashdot loves Google doesn't mean it's all of a sudden non-proprietary!

  10. Good Data by mindshadow · · Score: 2, Insightful

    See... I would pay up to about 50 dollars a month to have free access to reading those books online... I guess the problem would be printing them out and redistributing them. Perhaps maybe just manuals... I am so sick of shelling out 50 bucks so I can read 5 pages about some topic knowing I will never read the rest of the book. Love the web ... information is free ... hate the web ... information is not reliable and all over the place. :(

  11. Re:if I search for "the" will all pages come up? n by mirko · · Score: 5, Funny

    and if you look for "TEH", will you be redirected to Salshdot ?

    --
    Trolling using another account since 2005.
  12. Be careful, Amazon! by grub · · Score: 5, Funny


    Any returns of C or C++ code might get SCO's law team on your ass..

    --
    Trolling is a art,
  13. legal? by hatrisc · · Score: 4, Insightful

    doesn't this infringe on basically every copyright that the publishing industry has?

    --
    I write code.
    1. Re:legal? by keyslammer · · Score: 4, Informative

      It is well established that you can cite portions of a work (which seems to be what they're doing), if the portions are especially large, I would imagine that they'd have to get permission from the publishers.

      Of course, as Amazon, they're probably in a position to do so.

    2. Re:legal? by DeepRedux · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It looks like Amazon is going to get permission before they do this. First line of the article: "Executives at Amazon.com are negotiating with several of the largest book publishers...". There is no infringement if they have permission.

    3. Re:legal? by aziraphale · · Score: 4, Funny

      Crikey - you're right - I bet Amazon didn't think of that. We should get Jeff Bezos on the phone right now and tell him.

      Oh no, hang on, it seems that they have thought of it. Thank goodness for that - no need for an eagle eyed Slashdot reader to point out the error of their ways.

      It seems that, because Amazon has the entire publishing industry over a barrel nowadays, just a few quick calls from Amazon to their biggest suppliers, and a notice in publishers' weekly, and they can go ahead and do whatever they like with the content of the books they sell.

      You know, in some music stores, you can go up to listening points and hear music, on demand, without paying for it. D'you think the RIAA should be told? I bet they'd be really keen to sue their key supply channel for this obvious copyright infringement...

  14. Invasion of Privacy by BillFarber · · Score: 5, Funny

    Isn't this a violation of the privacy of all the people who have biographies for sale at amazon? John Ashcroft could search the text and find out anything they want about Abraham Lincoln! This article should be listed under "Your Rights Online".

  15. this could be huge... by jaxle · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This would be awesome for students. I've always wished I could just execute a search function through a book to find what I was looking for. It can be a p.i.t.a. to use indexes and thumb around until you find what you need.

    1. Re:this could be huge... by CycleMan · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Remembering my student days, I'm glad I didn't have such a search function. A search function lets you bypass what you're not specifically looking for. In an academic quest for knowledge, sometimes you need all the paragraphs of disclaimers and limiters around the cute phrase you're looking for, or you'll radically misinterpret the phrase.

      One example from current events: Bush said in his State of the Union address, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"

      However, several news organizations excluded the first six words of that sentence, and then called the President a liar. The President's intelligence or honesty aside, intentionally excluding these words dramatically distorts the meaning of the phrase, to the detriment of those using the filter.

  16. It's not the writeups, it's the moderation. by Thag · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The real issue is that Amazon's system doesn't do moderation very well, and as a result the reviews get spammed with people who really really like something.

    Or, you get situations where teachers apparently tell their classes to submit reviews on Amazon for a book, and you have 30 reviews that say nothing.

    And, of course, being a bookseller, there is a strong motivation for them to bias things so that positive reviews outweigh negative ones.

    Jon Acheson

    --
    All opinions expressed herein are my own, and not those of my employers, who are appalled.
    1. Re:It's not the writeups, it's the moderation. by professorhojo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      amazon don't post negative reviews if there aren't enough positives, i've found.

      one book i read by some guy that was just awful only had 1 glowing review (by his girlfriend/wife/fuckpuppet). so i reviewed it badly 3 months ago. i'm still waiting for that review to arrive.

      *sigh*

  17. Fair Use? by wo1verin3 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Remember when MP3.com cached a whole tonne of MP3 files on their servers? And even though they weren't selling them and you could only access them if you provided the original cd (or an exact copy) at one time, it was still decided not to be legal?

    Caching the entire contents of books sounds a little beyond fair use. The concept is cool, but they're going to need some publishers behind them. Maybe they think the name 'Amazon' will keep lawsuits away, but it won't.

    1. Re:Fair Use? by poptones · · Score: 2, Interesting
      MP3.com had already tried to establish itself as its own "label." They had clearly declared themselves competitors to the RIAA labels and then, in a grab for mo' money, decided they would dance through what they thought to be a "loophole" wherein they would "cache" - and then stream - MP3s of CDs from any major label that the "client" could prove (by way of sticking a Cd in a drive) they owned.

      contrast this with Amazon.com being one of the largest distributors in the world of books for all these publishers - it's the publisher's friend. Sure, they may do some things that threaten publishers (like their print on demand publishing) but Amazon didn't go out and try to co-opt all their business by providing unfettered access to any book a "client" could provide an ISBN number for.

      This sounds like a fantastic service. If they were to provide a "fair use excerpt" from any book on any subject in response to a query, that would be one service that finally lives up to the promise of the internet. What remains to be seen is if it actually lives up to that promise, or if it becomes yet another "premium" subscription service that simply "embraces and extends" the widening information gap between those with money and credit - and those without.

  18. Change the world... by mgcsinc · · Score: 2, Informative

    Some wealthy do-gooder could pay amazon to use this feature to the public's benefit, linking words such as "porn" to self-help books about sex-addiction and "bomb-making" to a similar book about dealing with pent-up anger...

    1. Re:Change the world... by Bearpaw · · Score: 2, Interesting
      Some wealthy do-gooder could pay amazon to use this feature to the public's benefit, linking words such as "porn" to self-help books about sex-addiction ...

      How about linking searches for self-help books to a book on addiction to self-help books?

      ... and "bomb-making" to a similar book about dealing with pent-up anger...

      Better yet, link to a book about non-violent ways of dealing with a society that's been fucked up by the manipulations of rich assholes.

  19. One rule for them... by Rogerborg · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sure, your honour, I only OCR'd and put my entire book collection up on Kazaa so that people could search for passages before buying them from me. Same with my mp3s and DVDs, now that I think of it.

    Let's look at the fair use provisions in the 1976 copyright act:

    the fair use of a copyrighted work [...] for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright.

    Purposes such as selling isn't covered, but let's read on, because as with most things written by lawyers for the benefits of lawyers, it's not that clear cut.

    In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include :

    (1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

    (2) the nature of the copyrighted work;

    (3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and

    (4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

    Well, you work it out. It's a copy of the entire work. That it's offered one piece at a time can't be a defence by itself, otherwise those fragments I upload and download to and from various people over eDonkey would be fine by same argument. The duplication is clearly of commercial nature (for Amazon's benefit), but on the other hand, it's arguably increasing the potential market for the copyrighted work.

    That last one is a very, very interesting provision. If Amazon can argue that making entire copies and distributing parts of them - potentially all of them - for their profit is just increasing the market for the original work by way of advertising and promoting it, why can't I argue that for my eDonkey use?

    If you think this argument is trite, have a look at www.sharereactor.com, which indexes content on eDonkey. You see the "Buy this at Amazon.com" links right there? What is eDonkey doing that's significantly different from Amazon? Are Amazon obtaining each and every rights owners' permission to perform this duplication? I doubt it, so the differences seems to be these:

    It's easier to obtain all the fragments from eDonkey (but not much easier, it can take upwards of a week to completely download a large file). And sharereactor is not for profit, whereas Amazon is primarily interested in their own profit.

    You work out where the morality and legality lies.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    1. Re:One rule for them... by aziraphale · · Score: 4, Informative

      > Are Amazon obtaining each and every rights owners' permission to perform this duplication? I doubt it

      Why do you doubt it? You do realise that Amazon has a direct business relationship with every publisher whose books it sells already, don't you? They don't buy their books from Barnes & Noble...

      Amazon's book buyers will offer this facility to publishers (whose salespeople they already work with directly - many publishers will employ one person whose entire job is selling books to Amazon) as a marketing benefit - and charge them for the privilege, no doubt - just as they do today with their 'look inside' feature. In order to keep competitive, publishers will prepare and supply the text in the format Amazon wants. It's really not hard for Amazon to do this at all.

    2. Re:One rule for them... by Rogerborg · · Score: 2, Informative

      What they want isn't necessarily what they get. However, the Amazon T&C's require anyone sending them content for sale to warrant that they have "full authority" to grant a "royalty-free, nonexclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable right and license to use, reproduce, perform, display and distribute, and adapt, modify, reformat, create derivative works of any content" and further that they can and do grant Amazon the rights to sublicense these rights.

      Any author signing away these rights to a publisher deserves to be royally screwed over. I'd rather self publish and make nothing rather than gamble on receiving pennies under these terms. This flies in the face of the intent of copyright, and illustrates perfectly how completely publishers can now demand outrageous boilerplate licensing terms in return for making money by selling the fruits of other peoples' labours.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  20. ==free online books? by KingRamsis · · Score: 2, Insightful

    so i someone wrote a script that sequentially searches for most popular words you can end up with the whole text?

  21. Like META tags in books? by JZ_Tonka · · Score: 5, Funny

    This will then prompt publishers to include several pages at the beginning of every book with nothing but "sex sex sex sex sex sex..."

  22. Your tax dollars at work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    The NIH has a good start with something of this nature. The NCBI (part of the National Library of Medicine) has a fully-searchable set of about 20 books. The books are generally cover biology topics, but represent some of the standard texts used in college courses. They call the project Bookshelf and it is entirely free. Several books contain direct links to gene sequences, etc.

  23. I can search entire text of Hacking TiVo! by jkeegan · · Score: 2, Funny
    I can search all of Hacking TiVo: The Expansion, Enhancement, and Development Starter Kit..

    but then again that's because I'm writing it. :)

    --

    ..Jeff Keegan
    seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
  24. Definitly! by Schezar · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Of course this *could* be great for college paper researchers, looking for a quote or two to stick in a research paper. Depends on how much meat you can really get at."

    College is great in this respect. No matter how crazy, ill-conceived, or outlandish your premise is, there are a thousand nut-jobs out there with nice quotations to support it. This would make it even easier to back that dribble up. Especially late the night before it's due, when you need to support that last flimsy claim in order for your paper to make sense.

    --
    GeekNights!
    Late Night Radio for Geeks!
  25. Research Humanity vs. P2P by tyrani · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This sounds like a good project that they could get some gov't funding for.

    Besides the obvious copywrite problems, if the gov't was to get involved and Amazon (or whoever) was allowed to permit searching an entire book for concepts / keywords but not be able to view the entire book without paying for it this would both increase sales and usefulness.

    If this was the origional model for online music, think of all the problems that would have been avoided. Perhaps a second look at this type of archiving will help the movie industry as bandwidth increases.

    --
    rejected (19) accepted (0)
    Is there a psychological term related to getting your stories rejected on slashdot?
  26. I thought the previous poster was joking, but... by Metroid72 · · Score: 2, Funny

    the book does exist and has raving reviews!!!
    3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
    slim in size but big on info, April 20, 2003 Reviewer: Magdalene Meretrix (see more about me) from Idaho This book is very slim -- there are only about 100 pages in it and much space is taken up with line drawings. It's understandable that the book is so slender since there really aren't volumes of information to impart on the subject, but I really wish the book had been longer. The book does covers the information very well and thoroughly. There is no way to make the information sections of the book longer without artificially stretching it out. As it is, vaginal fisting is a topic best suited to an article, not a full-length book. There is a section near the end of the book with poems and stories about fisting, written by people other than the author. I would have enjoyed it if that section had been expanded, even if it went so far as to take up half the total volume of the book. I was hungry for more information about fisting and would have liked to have seen more on the table at my feast of information.
    But even if the reader is disappointed by the quantity of written material, they will not be disappointed by the quality. The author quite obviously knows what she is talking about and has produced a very clear and concise guide to an exotic activity that is one of the less understood forms of pleasure sharing available to adventurous and exploratory couples. Addington discusses safety information, hand positions, necessary and desirable supplies to have on hand, and even more obscure topics such as fisting after a hysterectomy. There is one personal account by a woman who tried fisting but did not enjoy it. I would have liked to have seen more varied accounts, especially stories about difficulties (whether overcome or not) and problems with fisting. I was also surprised that no one, not even the author, mentioned the cathartic or healing experiences that some people can have during a fisting experience. Most of the descriptions of what it feels like to be fisted focused on the sensation of being very full and on a very spiritual level of trust and intimacy. In my experience, this is just one hue of the spectrum of sensations and emotions that can accompany fisting.
    Having personal experience with this subject, I can say that Addington has covered the physical territory very well and produced a book that is a good information source for beginning explorations in this intense, cathartic, orgasmic activity. I feel comfortable recommending this book to anyone who is curious about adding this activity to their sex life. Those already participating in fisting will probably not gain anything new from this book (other than the few poems, line drawings and one-page personal accounts) but those who have never been introduced to fisting by a friend or lover will learn quite a bit in the pages of Addington's book.
    Was this review helpful to you? 9 of 11 people found the following review helpful: Fully Illustrated Sexual Teaching, November 25, 2002 Reviewer: cousinpaco (see more about me) from Cincinnati, OH United States As an up-and-coming investment banker, I work under extreme pressure. My partner also makes her living in a stressful position. Together, we like to relieve our tensions by exploring ways to spice up our sex-life. It's difficult to find guidance and inspiration for such private matters, but Amazon.com has offered a wealth of options. I was looking for a new idea to try in the bedroom, but I couldn't put my finger on it.
    Then I found a wonderful book.
    When I first came across the cover, I thought it was the abandoned idea for Spinal Tap's latest album "Smell the Glove." To my pleasant surprise, it was a wonderfully written, illustrated manual on the art of vaginal fisting.
    Ms. Addington presents sensitive, tender explanations and answers some delicate questions, which went a long way toward making us both feel much more at ease about our predilictions.

  27. Next step... by Crusty+Oldman · · Score: 2, Funny
    .

    Now, put the rest of the book online, pay the author directly, and ya got something!

  28. What about searching through the old stuff? by machinecraig · · Score: 5, Informative

    I'm surprised nobodys mentioned Project Gutenberg - I mean, they've been OCRing public doman books for a long time now, and there are thousands of texts available... not in some crappy interface that Amazon will use, but in wonderful, sweet, ascii text format. Couple this with some good regular expressions and you're in business... want to see how many times Sherlock Holmes talked about using cocaine? It's elementary!

  29. RealLife? by ryanoo · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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.

    --

    Ryan O'Rourke

  30. Piece by piece, by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 4, Funny

    search a little, store a little. Search a little store a little more.

    Pretty soon you'll have the entire book.

    They'll have an app out to search the pieces out and stich them together into one complete book..

    Yeah, this will work, thanks for the free ebooks Amazon..

  31. Oh Goody by jayhawk88 · · Score: 5, Funny

    *Accessing http://www.amazon.com/search*
    Enter your search criteria:______________
    *Enter search "Moby Dick"*
    Search Complete:

    Moby Dick
    by: Herman Melville

    Call me...
    Would You Like to Read More? This title can be purchased for $14.95 through our...

    *Back Button*
    Enter your search criteria_____________
    *Enter search "Tale of Two Cities"*
    Search Complete:

    A Tale of Two Cities
    by: Charles Dickens

    It was the best of times, it was the...
    Would You Like to Read More? This title can be purchased for $29.95 through our...

    *Back Button-Back Button-Back Button-Close*

  32. cnn link by $exyNerdie · · Score: 2, Informative


    Amazon plans book-text search

  33. Re:How long before? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    You can only put around 25,000 books onto a DVD.
    (or, actually, 12,000 books in two formats...)

    Some guy proved this

  34. Great idea. by rice_burners_suck · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This is an excellent idea. I would hope that I'd be able to read a few sentences or paragraphs from the text containing the search phrase, along with whatever pages I am able to preview before buying the book and I hope this will later be extended to fiction.

    Just imagine if Amazon did some deal with the Library of Congress that allowed them to scan in nearly every book published in the United States. Once the information is digitally stored, it could be utilized in other ways as well:

    • Libraries around the country could offer consoles on which you could read any book through a secure connection of some type, preventing unauthorized copying, which would prevent book publishers from agreeing to this. You could essentially read any book, even if the library doesn't have it.
    • Bookstores, schools and other organizations might get in on this network and offer the same service.
    This service doesn't even have to be free. I'd pay a subscription fee to have access to this information, as would the bookstores and whatnot.
  35. Mainly teasers by xtrucial · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Probably this will be mainly for "teaser" purposes (think movie teasers) rather than something that actually allows researching. Like their "Look Inside" feature, which only shows the first few pages of a book. Still cool, though.