Rare Book Monthly
Amazon Introduces (sort of)<br>A New Search Engine with<br>“Search Inside the Book”
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Amazon does hold back a little. After all, they do want you to buy the book. When you go to view one of the pages from the book, at the bottom you will find links to the next and previous pages. If you want to continue reading, click “next” and the next page appears. If you want to see more, click “next” again and the following page appears. But, if you want to go further and click next a third time, nothing happens. That’s all you get. Two pages forward and two back. If you want more, buy the book. Of course, you will still be able to find any other pages elsewhere in the book containing your specific terms, but you won’t be able to just read the book from end to end online.
Here’s a tip for searching multiword phrases. Try placing quotation marks around the phrase for better-targeted results. When you place quotation marks around a Google search, it only finds that exact phrase. If you don’t, it will also find sites containing all of the words, though not necessarily in that order. In the case of William Rufus King, this is important, since there was also a King William Rufus of England who is better known than William Rufus King. Both have the same three names, but in a different order. Of course, even Google will give you a site referencing “William Rufus, King of England” since “William,” “Rufus” and “King” appear in the exact order in this phrase. But, Google will eliminate references to “King William Rufus” if you use quotation marks.
Amazon does not completely eliminate inexact results in its “Search Inside the Book” column. You will find some inexact listings even if you use quotation marks around “William Rufus King,” but you will get a higher concentration of precise results if you add the quotation marks. I’m not sure why it gives these inexact matches, but I suspect there are certain “minor” words it ignores. For example, it may ignore the word “the” in “William Rufus the King,” thereby seeing it as “William Rufus King.”
The final column in the Amazon search screen is one called “Search History.” This simply shows you recent words or phrases for which you have searched. Click on each phrase and it searches for it once again. For someone researching several different terms, this makes it easy to check which ones you have already searched, and quickly find your way back to those results. It’s a helpful convenience for anyone searching multiple topics.
