Google Book Search on Ajax

Are you a book worm? You don’t have to admit, but if you’re one, then you should visit Google’s Book Search the next time you’re planning to get or read an ebook. Dion Almaer recently shared some interesting reviews about the recent Ajax upgrade of Google book search on Ajaxian.com.

Being someone who’s been reading ebooks in PDF format for quite a while, I am really impressed with the Ajax feature that Google implemented on their book search. Besides the usual functions that I am already familiar with, the Ajax nature of this ebook reader gives me the freedom to choose how I want to view this ebook the way I want it. It allows you to easily zoom in or out the ebook you’re reading without much hassle.

The ebook reader featured with this Book Search is impressively neat. To switch between one page and two page views, all you need to do is just click on specified buttons. But the problem with this great functionality is perhaps how it is going to be working against Google’s motto of “Do no evil”. Just imagine, what will happen to plagiarism activities?

Paul Collins has got a point when he mentioned that this book search ability will help to figure out the plagiarism that existed in the past, in which he called the literary crime that are long buried. But, looking from another point of view, this might going to be the fuel that will start the fire that have already been burning at the rate that’s unstoppable.

While project guternberg focuses on public domain materials, it seems that Book Search is more daring by proposing to 8 libraries to scan the full-text of books that are free of copyright law for public use, while providing only the basic information for the protected books. But it might not be an easy path for Google to do that, considering the consequences that they might get from the authors of these books.