Microsoft starts online library
Microsoft said the US test version of Live Search Books featured tens of thousands of out-of-copyright books, including works held by the British library and major universities in Toronto and California.
A visit to Live Search Books at website http://books.live.com has revealed an uncluttered page with a box for seeking scanned works.
Searches by key words or author names quickly returned works such as the fourth century Taoist teachings of Lieh-tzu and "The Count of Monte-Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas that could be easily viewed page-by-page.
"With this initial release we’ve focused on making the reading experience as natural as possible," project director Cliff Guren wrote in a weblog entry posted on the website of Microsoft, which is based in Redmond, Washington.
"The US beta launch of Live Search Books is a big step forward in advancing the way people discover information through the integration of content that has been off-limits to the traditional search experience, until now."
In August, Google restarted its Google Book Search project initiated in 2004 with the aim of scanning every literary work into digital format and making them available online.
Loading ...