Michael Banks, Amazon Opens the Books, Online, March 3, 2004. A good introduction to Amazon's Search Inside the Book service. Excerpt: "Ask serious, long-time researchers to name the most valuable benefit of Web access and they'll cite the ability to search the content of books, periodicals, newsletters, and newspapers. Such access has eliminated untold hours of paging through hardcopies and greatly enhanced information gathering. Of the categories of text publications made available online, books have lagged behind magazines and newspapers in full-text availability....Publishers currently collaborating in this project will be adding more books, and Amazon.com reports inquiries from dozens more publishers. This is the result of an increase in sales brought about by the search tool. The company has tracked a 9 percent increase in sales of books included in the 'Search Inside' database....Even with its limitations, for researchers, this new 'selling tool' stands alone as a truly invaluable information resource."
Posted by
Peter Suber at 3/03/2004 11:43:00 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.
