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You know how much I admire Google, the world's most popular search engine and the chic provider of choice for 2-gigabyte e-mail accounts. Reports have circulated Google will soon launch a new search technology -- Google Print -- that allows users to search the texts of books online.
Google Print allows searches of complete texts no different than normal searches on Google or any other search engine. A user enters search terms, and the engine produces links to books that contain related information. The user may then read a limited number of pages in order to see if the content is relevant, or search for other topics within the book.
Users may not, however, print pages, but the search results page includes links to online booksellers from whom the user may purchase the book, or direct links to the book's publisher.
To spur interest in the new service, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin attended the Frankfort (Germany) Book Fair to encourage book publishers to send their books to Google. The company will then scan them and make excerpts available on the Web. Users will be able to search book copy in a way similar to how they now search Web sites.
Books already have been submitted by more than a dozen publishers, including Penguin, Wiley, Hyperion, Pearson, Taylor & Francis, Cambridge, Chicago, Oxford, Princeton and Scholastic. For now, only English-language books will be indexed, with other languages added later.
Forbes October 7, 2004
Digital Media Europe October 7, 2004