Rare Book Monthly
Amazon Introduces (sort of)<br>A New Search Engine with<br>“Search Inside the Book”
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Finally, there is a slight difference in results. Everything was the same until the ninth listing, when suddenly a site showed up on the Amazon results that was not listed on Google. Amazon says its “search results (are) enhanced by Google.” They are more than enhanced. They are primarily Google results. However, they are adding something else to the mix.
The second column of Amazon search results is the one that is really interesting. Amazon has scanned many complete books into its database. These books appear to be relatively recent (don’t look for the text of old or rare books unless they have been recently reprinted). Most were published in the past 10-15 years. What the second column gives you is a search of the text of these various books in the database. Amazon calls it “search inside the book.” In my search, it found all of the books in its database with references to William Rufus King and displayed them for me. That’s not all. It even showed me which pages have references to Mr. King and provided links to those pages. If this is not a fantastic research tool, I’m not sure what is.
This isn’t entirely new. You could already access these books through Amazon’s books search. However, it wasn’t obvious, was a bit cumbersome, and didn’t lay out the results as clearly. This gives you quick, easy to follow access to these records. For those looking to conduct research into books published primarily in the last 10-15 years, this is a great new tool and Amazon deserves our compliments.
Now Amazon is in the business of selling books, and what they really want you to do is buy a copy. If you click on the heading, the way you do on a Google search, it will take you to a page offering the book for sale (this explains the lack of references to old books). However, there will be a reference to a page number in the copy below, and if you click this, it will bring you to an image of that page. And, it will highlight your reference so you can find it quickly. At the bottom of the search results listing, you will also find a “see more references” link, and if you click this, it will provide a list of all pages in the book containing your search term. You will have to look past their attempts to sell you the book to see the listings, but that’s only fair in return for the service Amazon is providing.
