A Seattle startup is working on a novel device that could capture a few words from a book or printed article and quickly find the full text on the web.
The company, Exbiblio, expects to have a prototype ready in the fall that could span the growing divide between the internet and the world of printed material.
That’s all that the newspaper shows to non-subscribers. But ResouceShelf adds a bit more:
The device Exbiblio is developing will house a small optical reader, which connects [wirelessly] to a computer. Users can scan a snippet of printed text — as few as six words at a time — and use that “identifying barcode” to find the corresponding full text on the web, said [founder Martin King].
A person reading a printed newspaper, for example, could instantly get an online version of an article and e-mail it to friends or colleagues. Such a technology could take the advantages of the web — the interactivity and ability to directly measure traffic — and apply that to the printed word.
PS: I like this idea. As far as I can tell, it only works for texts that have been indexed for free online searching, the vast majority of which are OA.
Posted by
Peter Suber at 7/16/2007 11:23:00 AM.
The open access movement:
Putting peer-reviewed scientific and scholarly literature
on the internet. Making it available free of charge and
free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.
Removing the barriers to serious research.
I recommend the OA tracking project (OATP) as the best way to stay on top of new OA developments. You can read the OATP feed on a blog-like web page or subscribe to it by RSS, email, or Twitter. You can also help build the feed by tagging new developments you encounter.
