The Great Library of Amazonia

Books take time to transport. Their text vanishes and their pages yellow in a rash of foxing. Most important, it’s still shockingly difficult to find information buried in books. Even as the Internet has revived hope of a universal library and Google seems to promise an answer to every query, books have remained a dark region in the universe of information. We want books to be as accessible and searchable as the Web. On the other hand, we still want them to be books. —Gary Wolf
The Great Library of Amazonia  (Wired)

View Comments

  • Ironically, I just logged on to amazon.com today and saw that they're now enabling searches WITHIN books, not just FOR them. I'm not sure how I feel about this yet. Will it slow down the server/searcher? Has the envelope been pushed further into author's rights to exclusivity somehow? I just don't know yet.

Share
Published by
Dennis G. Jerz

Recent Posts

Creating textures for background buildings in a medieval theater simulation project. I can always improve this later. #blender3d

Creating textures for background buildings in a medieval theater simulation project. I can always improve…

13 hours ago

Yesterday my stack of unmarked assignments was about 120, so this is not bad.

Nothing in this stack is pressing, but they do include rough drafts of final papers,…

1 day ago

ai, ai, ai: critical thinking and literacy won’t save you

Here’s the underlying problem. We have an operating image of thought, an understanding of what…

1 day ago

Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.

Representing the Humanities at Accepted Students Day.

5 days ago

The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.

The daughter opens another show. This weekend only.

5 days ago

How to Disagree Academically: Using Graham’s “Disagreement Hierarchy” to organize a college term paper.

How to Disagree Academically: Using Graham's "Disagreement Hierarchy" to organize a college term paper.

6 days ago