Great strides have been made in utilizing the potential of Internet; indexing various things from simple filing to scientific journals and books.
Traditional publishers have somehow shown little interest in adapting to this tool but Microsoft and Google did take an initiative to change the picture.
The two were hopeful on creating something on the search and research aspect of shared knowledge from the academic and publishing world. But just when things seemed to be heading the right way, Microsoft calls it a day and plugs out its Live Search Books and Live Search Academic projects, effective from next week.
Why would Microsoft do such a thing? According to Microsoft the entire idea isn’t worth it. It shouldn’t be surprising for the announcement comes after Microsoft’s proposed pay program and the integrated Launch of travel search Farecast. It’s obvious that the such an action has been taken to direct all attention to the more rewarding areas.
Microsoft on the contrary decided to pass out the digital copies of their content to the original owners and have been specific in making Google prominent in this regard. This is primarily because Google is still determined to continue the digitizing and indexing of all the published content.
According to Microsoft; they are encouraging libraries to build on the platform on the already existing one with various other groups (Kirtas, the Internet Archive and others).
Such an action might just be a good idea since the traditional publishers have adopted to this tool at a snail’s pace.
It is time that networks like Shelfari stand up and capitalize on some of the tools that Microsoft has developed. Let’s just wait and see what awaits the digital libraries.
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