Intro
More than a year on from the original announcement, Microsoft this week introduced Live Search Books - its rival to Google Book Search.
Both services are beta and with their own pros and cons. However, even spending a few minutes with Live Search Books shows that it is, potentially, a massively useful and enjoyable tool and one where the emphasis seems to be on providing direct online access to books - and PDF versions for download - rather than moving you along to sites that sells them.
In fairness, though, Google Book Search does have one wonderful feature absent from Live Search Books - the ability to locate a nearby library where the book can be borrowed or read!
It's early days for Live Search Books, though, and the range of possible features is not yet finalised any more than the job of digitising vast numbers of books. But, even now, there's a wealth of material available - to browse and to download - though titles from the USA dominate.
On page two, we're doing a quick and dirty comparison between the two rivals and also looking at the plain-text alternative offered by The Internet Archive...
