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October 24, 2003Amazon was sent from the heavensOlder friends of mine gasp at the realization that i've never done research without the web. Yet, despite the web, i've always had one problem that has haunted me. Sure, i can read many computer-related journals and articles, look up any book and read anyone's college essay on most topics, but there are so many books that i just stare at and scream grep. Grep. I just want grep to work on my books. Well, gosh darn, Amazon went and invented it. They were sent from the heavens i tell you. This will revolutionize the next generation of college students. Category: digitalness
Posted by zephoria at October 24, 2003 1:50 AM
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Comments (5)
Oh my. Thanks for pointing that out. Wow.
But really, is it grep? is there a * $ or -c involved...I think not!
Posted by Bernie | October 24, 2003 10:30 PM
Posted on October 24, 2003 22:30
OK, fine, it's not really a grep... But it's awefully close and makes me quite happy!
Posted by zephoria | October 25, 2003 3:22 PM
Posted on October 25, 2003 15:22
Apparently, any author who wishes to have their book removed can do so, according to the Author's Guild: http://volokh.com/#106709335886539688
It will be interesting to see how this plays out. A year from now, I'd like to see the results of a study showing the effects of allowing full-text search on the sales of particular books in various genres.
Posted by Ryan Shaw | October 25, 2003 4:04 PM
Posted on October 25, 2003 16:04
Here's a great note i've received via email:
* Someone on Slashdot pointed out that Amazon allows you to view the page after the one on which it found a match, which then allows you to take key words from that page, search for them, find that page and get to the next one. In other words, once you have page i, you can get page i+1 by first going to the "next page" link, then searching for some keywords from that page. A proof by induction!
Also, people have been pointing out lots of questions about copyright - is this a copyright violation? What about when it's used for academic purposes? What if you own all of the books? Mmm.. fun thing to chew on.
Personally, i want Amazon to add a function where you can list all of the books in your library and search your own library, regardless of copyright. I mean, i *own* my books, right?
Posted by zephoria ipseity | October 25, 2003 4:09 PM
Posted on October 25, 2003 16:09
Hmm, I suspect the only way amazon would do that (search your own library) is if you bought the books from them or had some sort of 'amazon gold' subscription.
The bigger question is how much did it cost to do this, and why can't a network of libraries do the exact same thing for their students? Maybe in some sort of distrubted text scanning project.
Posted by bernie | October 26, 2003 5:07 PM
Posted on October 26, 2003 17:07