Comments on: search inside booooooooooks

search inside booooooooooks

louigi — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:04:09 -0800

Amazon introduced "Search inside the book" a while ago, but now the searchmasters are doing it.

By: louigi

louigi — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:04:24 -0800

Unlike Amazon, there's no registration required to use it. Just search for the author or book with Google's regular search. A hint: to see page 35, for example, search for the number 35 within the book...

By: Saydur

Saydur — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:08:24 -0800

Google is the mega-Univac which makes our lives more and more awesome continually until it gains sentience and enslaves us all. On the upside, when we need to find our keys to serve the Great Master Google, it'll already know where they are and point us to them immediately with but a thought.

By: three blind mice

three blind mice — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:14:16 -0800

Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful and then by selling the keys to access this information (the key words) we will allow corporations to direct unsuspecting users to where they told to go, instead of to where they really want to go. the more successful google gets, the more valuable the yellow pages will become.

By: cstross

cstross — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:21:00 -0800

Not compatible with Safari. Colour me unamused. (I'm also unamused by other implications of this system, at least until I know more -- like, how it's going to affect the copyright holders.)

By: louigi

louigi — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:29:32 -0800

I'm using it with Safari ... what version are you using? In terms of copyright - well, I generally believe increasing people's access to copyright material tends to increase sales rather than decrease them. I would expect this to hold especially for print - most people would still rather hold a book than read off a screen, if only because of the kinds of situations people tend to read books in (in bed, on the bus, etc.). In addition, their system is fairly restrictive. There's a maximum number of pages a user can look at in a given book (varying from publisher to publisher), apparently, so downloading whole books is difficult or impossible.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:29:59 -0800

This has been there for many months now. Results from books are pretty sparse. That will change, I suppose, when the library collections are put online.

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:53:02 -0800

Is this US only? Even when I force Google to go to .com instead of .co.uk it doesn't return anything. Even for "ecuador trekking".

By: Axaxaxas Mlö

Axaxaxas Mlö — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 06:59:12 -0800

ninebelow, did you try "Jorge Luis Borges" or any of the other examples? You don't get book results for every search. "Ecuador trekking" doesn't give any.

By: beagle

beagle — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:06:27 -0800

then by selling the keys to access this information (the key words) we will allow corporations to direct unsuspecting users to where they told to go, instead of to where they really want to go Assuming you mean "big large" corporations, so far the opposite has been the case. Google Ads have allowed many small merchants in niche markets to target a national audience quite inexpensively. GoogleAds are really custom-made for the little guy. For example, quoted in the NYTimes of Feb 4: Ask Ray Allen, a former ad agency executive who is now the president of American Meadows, a wildflower seed supplier in Williston, Vt. "I used to spend millions of dollars of other people's money on TV, radio and newspapers," Mr. Allen said. He now spends about $300 a day to buy search terms like "wildflower seeds" and "hummingbird garden" from Google and Overture to advertise his own company, reaching a national audience of potential customers. "Never in the history of media," he said, "has a small business been able to have that much reach."

By: louigi

louigi — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:15:54 -0800

That's funny, though, ninebelow - I mean funny ha ha. (Axaxaxas Miö, in the first link Google's suggested search to show the utility of their tool is "books about Ecuador trekking", which to date only returns pages about this search service. Whoops!) But yeah, try some other authors. They don't have everything - depends on which publishers and libraries they have agreements with.

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:22:15 -0800

Yeah, I tried Borges, Gogol and Heart Of Darkness - all the searches linked to in the FPP. Nothing.

By: pez_LPhiE

pez_LPhiE — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:43:00 -0800

you can actually read the entire boko for free with this service. You get to see the first bunch of pages for free but if you search a sentence on the last page allowed, you can return to that page and see the next pages, then you can search a sentence the last page allowed, etc, etc... Someone can technically write a bot to save the entire book like this.

By: louigi

louigi — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 07:58:32 -0800

The following searches yielded those pages: 1 2 3. When I link to them, do the books show up for you, ninebelow? If not, I suppose it's only available to certain regions. On the other hand, I'm in France and it's working for me ...

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:11:32 -0800

Ah ha! Yes, that works. Whilst I had searched for borges and "jorge luis borges", only jorge luis borges returns the result and I hadn't tried that. Outsmarted by quote marks. Thanks for edumakating me, I can't wait till it works properly.

By: ralphyk

ralphyk — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:40:12 -0800

If you're outside the US, in some countries google.com takes you to your localised page - just click on the "go to google.com" link, then try the search, and you'll get book results.

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:45:45 -0800

ralphyk, see my first comment. And then my last comment.

By: w0mbat

w0mbat — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 08:45:57 -0800

Make "book" the first word of your query and it will always give you book results. e.g. http://www.google.com/search?q=book+borges

By: Asparagirl

Asparagirl — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:14:55 -0800

Hey, that's us!

By: ralphyk

ralphyk — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:31:03 -0800

ninebelow, I read all the comments - I was just adding something I've discovered, in case anyone was having the same trouble as me when searching.

By: longdaysjourney

longdaysjourney — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:36:53 -0800

Dave Winer had some thought-provoking comments about Google's digitization project: "What if Microsoft were doing what Google is doing? Of course we wouldn't let them do it without a very serious and probably very shrill examination. Well, I'm telling you, Google today is as dangerous as Microsoft, and I wouldn't bet on their trustworthyness, not without a lot more light having been shed on this."

By: stbalbach

stbalbach — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 09:46:23 -0800

"Someone can technically write a bot to save the entire book" I'm pretty sure that, like Amazon, they watch for this. If they didn't it would be silly, and it would be easy to watch for and prevent.

By: mrgrimm

mrgrimm — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 10:50:39 -0800

Thank you for using Google Print. You have either reached a page that is unavailable for viewing or reached your viewing limit for this book. Google protects works that are under copyright by restricting access to certain pages and restricting the number of pages you can view. You may continue to take advantage of Google Print by clicking on About this Book. Thank you for using Google Print.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 11:00:07 -0800

pez_LPhiE: Someone can technically write a bot to save the entire book. They sure can. Viewing restrictions don't mean much. Some new book warez group will simply stagger downloading across a week, using multiple access points.

By: Zurishaddai

Zurishaddai — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 12:16:18 -0800

Speaking of bots and harvesting pages, if you ever need to harvest page images from Amazon, search the source for

id='pageBack'

and you'll get the needed URL. It's saved me a trip to the library!

By: donth

donth — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 14:36:56 -0800

In google print, search for the second background-image:url example.

By: Gyan

Gyan — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:15:36 -0800

If you're using Firefox, just bring up Tools->Page Info->Media, select the item and click the 'Save As' button.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:36:48 -0800

This has been there for many months now.

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Mon, 14 Feb 2005 15:40:51 -0800

Sorry for my snark, that was a good tangential point.