I mentioned Amazon's inside the book when the NY Times published about it. The Google news sounds interesting as well. It's less likely to appeal to the undergraduate with the paper due tomorrow morning than Amazon's service though.
Click through for the ShelfLife clippings.
GOOGLE SEEKS A FOOTHOLD IN AMAZON TERRITORY
At the same time that Amazon is seeking to incorporate some of Google's
search capabilities, Google has been in talks with publishers, hoping that
convince them to allow it to use some book content in its database. Unlike
Amazon, Google wouldn't offer the content in excerpted snippets, but rather
would use its spiders to crawl through the content, turning up relevant
links. If a user clicks through, she would go to a Google page offering an
abstract of the book and an opportunity to buy it. It's unclear who would
handle the actual transaction, but presumably the publisher. Google has
been coy about its plans -- "We're talking to a few publishers and are
always looking to add more content that will make the search more useful
for customers," says a company spokeswoman -- but rumor has it Google has
cut a deal with one publisher to enter as many as 60,000 titles into its
database. (Publishers Weekly 28 Oct 2003)
http://publishersweekly.reviewsnews.con/index.asp?layout=articlePrint&articleID=CA331934
AMAZON TURNS OVER A NEW LEAF ON BOOK SEARCHES
Amazon says its new "Search Inside the Book" feature does not allow users
to print pages from within books, allaying authors' fears that unscrupulous
readers might use it to print out recipes, hotel recommendations or other
such reference material. Amazon VP Steve Kessel refused to confirm that
Amazon had changed the feature to prevent such abuses, citing security
concerns, but acknowledged that 15 authors had requested their books to be
removed from the Search the Book database. Up until last Friday, according
to Authors Guild executive director Paul Aiken, the Search Inside the Book
tool allows users to search the complete text of a book for words or
phrases and print out pages where the phrases appeared. That feature
appears to be disabled, said Aiken, who praised the feature but said "we
just think it needs a little work." (AP 31 Oct 2003)
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20031101/D7UHG5SG0.html