books

Not long ago, Google agreed to pay $125 million to the book industry to settle claims of copyright infringement over its BookSearch scheme. The agreement means Google can now legally scan copyrighted books and put them online as long as they are no ... longer in print. The cash will go towards setting up a registry of books involved, compensating authors and publishers affected by Google's violations, and paying the legal fees of the case. The agreement will have to get the backing of a New York court (where the case was brought) before it takes effect. (Source: google.com) The case involved a ... (view more)

Reading, at least in the conventional way of leafing page by page through a book, is at risk and the blame is being placed squarely on the shoulders of the Internet and (of course) television. The decline of reading has fueled a massive national ... debate not only about 'if' we read but 'how' we read. The debate began in 2002 when the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) found that the number of non-reading adults had increased by 17 million to 89 million adults, roughly one out of three adults. According to the NEA, only 47% of American adults read 'literature', including poems, plays, ... (view more)

Attention all MS Office users -- Frustrated by MS Word? Excel just doesn't seem to add up? Feel powerless using PowerPoint and MS Outlook? Enough already! Learn MS Office: The Easy Way Our very own Carol Bratt has done it again -- and just in time ... for the holiday season! Whether you're an MS Office veteran or just beginning to learn the ropes, Carol's new Tips and Tricks eBook series on MS Office 2007 is just for you! If you've ever used the cumbersome help menu in any of the MS Office suites, then you know just how frustrating it can be when you can't find what you're searching for, or the ... (view more)

With the world going digital, new online products and services are constantly being introduced. Earlier this month, Microsoft expanded their online offerings by launching a beta version of "Live Search Books." With the consortium of blogs and ... message boards on the Internet, sometimes legitimate information is not so easy to find online. A Microsoft spokesperson said that Live Search Books is helping users sort through information by making trusted sources -- that is, published books -- available online: "Live Search Books is advancing the way people search online by digitizing and indexing ... (view more)

Announced last week, the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UW) is the newest post-secondary institution to join Google's controversial library project -- a venture that strives to provide user access to various library collections and digital ... reference materials. The project, dubbed Google Book Search, utilizes the same technology as the company's main search engine and allows users to wade through millions of publications by searching for a particular phrase or topic. Google's project was launched last year with five renowned libraries participating: Harvard University, Stanford University, ... (view more)

The world's bibliophiles have a new place to consume their daily intake of literature as Google Book Search now offers free book downloads available in PDF format. The company announced last week that it will provide free PDF downloads of public ... domain classic out-of-copyright titles that users can view at their leisure. Books that are being offered for download include all titles published before 1923 in the US, and feature such classics as Dante's "Inferno," Aesop's "Fables," Shakespeare's "Hamlet" and Ferriar's The "Bibliomania." The PDF download carries a watermark that identifies the ... (view more)

Synopsis: Are you a bookworm? Do you own so many books that it's next to impossible to locate a favorite novel? Tired of all the clutter and wish you had an organized method to categorize your books? Introducing: Book Collector -- a library program ... that helps you catalog your book collection into a meaningful list of organized data! With Book Collector, you can: catalog books without typing, instantly sort your lists, view book cover thumbnails, search your book library, print book lists, export book lists to HTML (for the web), and track your book loans. Book Collector: Screenshots Click to ... (view more)