Amazon’s ‘Search Inside the Book’

Someone tell me why we can’t do this
zaphod search puts a Microsft book at the top of the list for my results.

I can’t wait to hear the chorus of old fart librarians with a million and one reasons why we can’t do this in libary catalogs. Even worse will be unresposive and not very innovative OPAC vendors who will provide nothing that even comes close to this, and charge $10,0000 for the “service”.

We must start to be more innovative in the array of offerings we provid to our customers, we are being left behind, it’s just that simple. We can not sit and let the OPAC vendors feed us the crap they have been until now.

Re:Someone tell me why we can’t do this
People are missing the point. Right now you only get access to two pages — then they want you to buy the book. What you’re seeing here is a pivotal moment in the history of book publishing. And remember you saw it here first and you heard it from:

The Library Phantom

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The searchability implies that all the books are there — in an electronic form. It’s only a short leap from that to the idea that Amazon sells a subscription service that lets you have access to the entire library. Wouldn’t alot of people pay $10 a month for easy online access to a big library — especially if it included lots of reference type books.
This is the same thing that RealNetworks already does with online music. It’s no great stretch to extend that model to online books. Especially if the publishers restricted it to older books where they’ve already sold out the print run.
From the standpoint of revenue it makes sense. Instead of making money when you publish a book and for a short time afterwards you create an ongoing revenue stream — plus you save yourself the trouble of printing a second edition of a book when you know that you’re only going to sell a small fraction of the edition. Instead of making 500 and selling 100 you simply sell it as an online edition and your costs are, well, essentially, nil. There are no unsold copies, no upfront costs for shipping, no returns from vendors. Your per copy profit margin in an electronic environment is much higher.

And how many books go out of print because the costs of making a second edition so greatly exceed any hope of revenue. And, finally, think about this folks — there is probably a whole backlog of out of print books where the publishers hold the electronic rights — maybe because the author never thought of including it or it was long before electronics. That means the publisher wouldn’t have to pay any royalties.

What’s been missing from the whole e-book arena is some 500 pound gorilla with the means and ability to make the idea of e-books work. Now, with Amazon, the missing simian has entered the room. Couple this with the development of wireless and tablet computing and you’ve got a whole new paradigm in place.

Re:awesome
Sorry, I should change my verb tense. The last bit should read: for which their expertise WAS needed. Thanks for nothin’, librarians.