Reading Technology and Book Scanning
Change in Reading by Online, Electronic and Digital Books & Catalogs
Sep 6, 2009
Software has been developed which is forcing change into the world of reading. Whole books can be scanned, consumers and small organizations have access to book indexing and cataloging programs previously reserved for larger libraries and even the physical book is changing.
Book Reading Technology
Book reading technology is advancing swiftly, with electronic book readers being offered by many manufacturers – two examples being the Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.
Electronic or digital book readers allow users to read without carrying a physical book. The writing is held digitally in a device typically smaller than a paperback. Different models offer different features, such as searching, making notes, enlarging text and a backlight.
Electronic book readers can only be used with digital books, so providing digital content is crucial to their success. The technology to scan and digitize existing books, including books out of copyright, sits alongside new books being made available in digitally readable formats.
Google Book Scanning
Software exists to help scan complete books and a number of large corporations have undertaken activity in this area. Amazon started displaying parts of books using ‘Search Inside’ in 2003. Microsoft stopped its book scanning project in 2008 and, as explained by Bill Thompson on the BBC News website in 2009, Google’s book scanning project caused controversy.
Google described its library project as ‘an enhanced card catalog of the world’s books’, with different options to be offered to readers, from brief snippets comprising a few sentences within the book to the opportunity to download the whole book if it is out of copyright.
However, the project raised concerns around anti-competitiveness and led to the formation of the Open Book Alliance.
It seems likely that as technology advances (and more software becomes available to manage book libraries, scanning and downloading), then the barriers to entering the market for providing digital book content (legal and illegal) will reduce. Possibly leading to issues similar to those being faced in the arena of music downloads.
Private Book Catalogs
Software has been developed to manage private book libraries electronically. Home users and small organizations have access to many features of more expensive library systems such as allowing books to be catalogued and then searched for by title, author or genre – even keeping records of book lending (name of borrower, date, etc).
Entering information into the book catalog is easy. For example, by entering the ISBN code or by scanning the book’s barcode. The software then accesses online databases for further information about the book (cover image, author, title, etc).
Some of the software to organize book collections is free (with some limits on functionality). Most is reasonably priced.
The existing databases of available books, coupled with book scanning software and digital book readers comprise a technology that is changing the book reading world.
References:
Amazon, Search Inside the Book—Program Details & FAQs, http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=10197041, accessed 6 September 2009
Google, Google Books Library Project, http://books.google.com/googlebooks/library.html, accessed 6 September 2009
Microsoft, Book Search Winding Down, http://www.bing.com/community/blogs/search/archive/2008/05/23/book-search-winding-down.aspx, accessed 6 September 2009
Thompson B, Keeping Google Out of Libraries (from the BBC News website), http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8233324.stm, accessed 6 September 2009
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