Sample pages at Amazon

[Jenny Levine]

    Amazon has made some changes to the books section of their Web site that
allow you to view sample pages of titles.  The home page highlights the new
"Look Inside" feature that is available for "thousands of books", including
childrens titles.  For example, if you go to
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/068982954X/103-2992880-3883837 to
find "Olivia Saves the Circus", you can view the back cover, an excerpt from
the book, the front & back flaps, and the intro pages (8 sample pages
total).  Other titles let you view the table of contents, the index, and
more.  The title "Animal: The Definitive Visual Guide to the World's
Wildlife" includes 112 sample pages
(http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0789477645/103-2992880-3883837), and
this item hasn't even been published yet.
    From a precursory glance, it looks like they are scanning in each page
and displaying them as standard images in the browser, which essentially
means they have their own digitizing project.  At the top of each image is
the phrase "Copyrighted material", which is just another version of the
signs we put on our photocopy machines.
    Looks like they scooped libraries again and are offering another service
that we should be integrating into our catalogs.  How would we pull this
off?

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Jenny Levine                                          125 Tower Drive
Internet Development Specialist              Burr Ridge, IL 60527
Suburban Library System                       +1 (630) 734 5141
http://www.sls.lib.il.us/                            levinej at sls.lib.il.us
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