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October 20, 2009, 11:45 AM ET
New Site Indexes Information on Digital Books
The Internet Archive, a San Francisco-based nonprofit group, has created a system for helping people find digital books on the Internet. The service, called BookServer, collects information on digital books that are available online, either free or for a fee. Those in charge of the project say they hope it will make it easier for people to use digital material online.
Authors, publishers, libraries, and book sellers -- in other words, anyone who offers free or paid books online -- can index their materials so they appear when people conduct a search on BookServer.
"This is a mechanism by which we can expose the books that are available for lending," said Peter Brantley, director of the BookServer project at the Internet Archive. "We're trying to get books into the hands of readers as many different ways as possible."
BookServer will benefit anyone who creates or distributes books, Mr. Brantley said. For example, the site can help publishers distribute books directly to readers.
While some of the books it indexes have a cost, BookServer itself, which Mr. Brantley compared to an RSS feed, is available free.
Categories: Libraries, Search-Engines, Publishing
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