by SEO Consultant
S. Inarejos
Microsoft has announced that its Live Search Books beta version will be launched in the US on Thursday, 14th December 2006, featuring an undisclosed amount of out-of-copyright books - including those held by the British Library, University of Toronto, the University of California, American Museum of Veterinary Medicine and the New York Public Library. In a clear move to provide authoritative content from trusted sources, the inclusion of books to Live Search will provide a valuable resource to its users. S. Inarejos
Live Search Books
The Live Search Books' interface has been unveiled before its official launch - a move which has provided insight into its striking simplicity. It will have a clear design, with a simple search box into which users can introduce keywords or keyphrases. Once a keyword is introduced, the results will come up with an image of the book's front page, book title, author, year of publication and number of pages, along with a short description. Once you select the book, a second window will open with a three-pane layout; this window contains an additional search box which is specifically designed for search within that particular book. Moreover, a navigational element allows you to browse the whole book in scanned form, including the back cover and, in some cases, even the loan history information.
Live Search Books v Google Books
On the 30th August 2006, Google restarted their Google Book Search project that began in 2004. Google established partnerships with major universities, such as Harvard, Oxford, and University Complutense of Madrid, including common partners with Live Search Books, such as the University of California and the New York Library. Google Book Search provides four different sections:
- "About this book" with basic information regarding the book,
- a "Snippet view" with summary, contents, references and related books,
- a "Limited preview" where pages and content are shown, but the whole document is not disclosed,
- or a "Full preview", similar to the Live Search Books results page, in which the whole document is disclosed.
Copyright infringement
In its database, Google stores publicly available classic works alongside copyrighted books with or without the publisher's permission, whereas Live Search Books has taken a safer route and will only store and disclose digitised books which are out-of-copyright. Google has found significant opposition from authors and publishers: in 2005, a group of more than 8,000 authors accused Google of "massive copyright infringement". The opposition did not end there: claims that Google is simply a US-based company which favours English texts have also been debunked in light of the search engine's partnership with the University Complutense of Madrid, which offers Spanish texts. A future project to publish books in French is also expected shortly.
In the information era, the possibility of having reliable - and free - data available online is very good news. With the internet now being flooded with irrelevant and copied content, the arrival of a more authoritative text should be received with a warm welcome. However, copyright issues are a sensitive matter and authors will resist being put into a situation in which they have to contact search engines in order to get their books removed. Essentially, Live Search Books and Google Books are two excellent resources, allowing the world the opportunity to access more out-of-copyright content available in as many languages as possible.
