<\/p>\n
Google continues to roll out new mobile products.\u00a0 Monday it was Tasks<\/a>, yesterday Latitude<\/a> and today we have Google Mobile Book Search<\/em> at books.google.com\/m<\/a>.\u00a0 It’s an iPhonesque mobile interface into 1.5 million\u00a0 public domain books that Google has scanned as part of its Book Search project. I heard about it first\u00a0 from microflash<\/a> on Twitter.\u00a0 There’s an official announcement on the Inside Book Search<\/a> blog.<\/p>\n
I think it’s a mistake to look at Google Mobile Book Search as an eBook reader. <\/strong> If you just want to read a classic novel like Anna Karenina you are nuch better off downloading a proofread copy from Project Gutenberg<\/a> and reading it with an eBook reader application like Mobipocket, Plucker or TCBR.\u00a0 There won’t be any gobbledygook, pages will turn faster, the reader will remember your exact place in the book between sessions and you’ll be able make annotations.\u00a0 The real value of Google Book Search is as a research tool. Project Gutenberg has just about every Classic book I’ve every heard of but its total collection is only 27,000 books, and it took a small army of dedicated volunteers 37 years to scan and proofread those 27,000 volumes.\u00a0 Google has scanned\u00a0 and OCRed 7 million books in 4 years as part of the Book Search project.\u00a0 Google’s repository of scanned books is a tremendous resource, the largest digital library ever.\u00a0 It includes all sorts of obscure documents; trade catalogs, academic journals and magazines from long ago that can’t be found anywhere else online.<\/p>\n
Related Posts<\/em>
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\nGoogle Latitude – This is Big!<\/a>
\nGoogle Tasks For Mobile Released<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Google continues to roll out new mobile products.\u00a0 Monday it was Tasks, yesterday Latitude and today we have Google Mobile Book Search at books.google.com\/m.\u00a0 It’s an iPhonesque mobile interface into 1.5 million\u00a0 public domain books that Google has scanned as part of its Book Search project. I heard about it first\u00a0 from microflash on Twitter.\u00a0 There’s an official announcement on the Inside Book Search blog. The new mobile interface lets you search\u00a0 for and read any of\u00a0 the 1.5 million … Continue reading