[Web4lib] MS Windows Live Book Search

[Michael McCulley]

Just a note on the post, and Dave's fine points.. 

I will opt for the competition in this marketspace/experiment.. even with
limitations, the OCA and Microsoft's participation in it is something I
think the profession should encourage. Help them, make it better, make
suggestions..

There are no absolute paths to the bookosphere (tm), only various paths or
parts of a whole..

I try and think of the libraries and users and staff that will benefit from
more books online, searchable, available for - sometimes reading,
downloading, browsing, fact-finding, verification of bibliographic data,
analysis, discovery, serendipity, and so on...

I would think we need to welcome all players to the field for this one..
it's a, gulp, big endeavor.. needs accessibility work, interfaces (maybe
more than one, but maybe that's a plus; think differences between search
engine power), archives, repositories, cross-sector relationships and
agreements, rights and permissions, and so on.

>From me, Welcome Microsoft.. Google.. Yahoo! ..UC and University of
Toronto.. the game's afoot! And it feels exciting...

Best,
DrWeb

-- 
P. Michael McCulley aka DrWeb
mailto:drweb at san.rr.com
San Diego, CA 
http://drweb.typepad.com/

Quote of the Moment:
 I don't necessarily agree with everything I say. (Marshall McLuhan)
Monday, June 12, 2006 8:46:30 PM 
 
>-----Original Message-----
>From: web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org 
>[mailto:web4lib-bounces at webjunction.org] On Behalf Of DH MATTISON
>Sent: Monday, June 12, 2006 12:14 PM
>To: Web4Lib
>Subject: Re: [Web4lib] MS Windows Live Book Search
>
>To place this announcement in context, Microsoft is but one 
>member of the Open Content Alliance and this announcement is 
>part of that initiative. When I first read about Yahoo! 
>digitizing books last October, I too had mistakenly assumed 
>that it was a catchup effort on Yahoo!'s part, only to learn 
>that Yahoo! was also a member of the Open Content Alliance.
>
>So it's actually the Open Content Alliance versus Google, not 
>Yahoo! or MSN/Windows Live Book Search versus Google. I have 
>to wonder when Google will join the OCA. This is kind of like 
>the VHS versus Betamax format marketing war. In this case, 
>however, we're probably going to see more than two search interfaces.
>
>BTW, besides the University of Toronto, the list of Canadian 
>OCA partners includes McMaster University, Memorial University 
>of Newfoundland, Simon Fraser University, University of 
>British Columbia, University of Ottawa, and York University.
>
>David Mattison
>dmattison at shaw.ca
>Ten Thousand Year Blog: http://www.davidmattison.ca/