The beta version of Live Search Books was released in December 2006,
with a search possible by keyword for non-copyrighted books digitized
by Microsoft in partner libraries. The British Library and the
libraries of the Universities of California and Toronto were the first
ones to join in, followed in January 2007 by the New York Public
Library and the Cornell University Library. Books offered full text
views and could be downloaded in PDF files. In May 2007, Microsoft
announced agreements with several publishers, including Cambridge
University Press and McGraw Hill, for their books to be available in
Live Search Books. After digitizing 750,000 books and indexing 80
million journal articles, Microsoft ended the Live Search Books program
in May 2008. These books are available in the OCA collections of the
Internet Archive.
December 2006 > A quote by Marc Autret, a journalist and graphic
designer
Marc Autret, a journalist and graphic designer, wrote in December 2006:
"I imagine the ebook of the future as a kind of wiki crystallized and
packaged in a format. How valuable will it be? Its value will be the
value of a book: the unity and quality of editorial work!" (NEF
Interview)
December 2006 > A quote by Pierre Schweitzer, inventor of the @folio
project
Peter Schweitzer, inventor of the @folio project, a reading device
project, wrote in December 2006: "The luck we all have is to live here
and now this fantastic change. When I was born in 1963, computers
didn't have much memory. Today, my music player could hold billions of
pages, a true local library. Tomorrow, by the combined effects of the
Moore Law and the ubiquity of networks, we will have instant access to
works and knowledge. We won't be much interested any more on which
device to store information. We will be interested in handy functions
and beautiful objects." (NEF Interview)