A library at your fingertips
Nov 4th 2005
From The Economist Global Agenda

Big technology companies have pledged to make many thousands of books available online. The commercial prospects look shaky, but this new front in the battle between the world’s leading internet portals will yield a valuable resource for all.

A FEW years ago, at the height of the dotcom boom, it was widely assumed that a publishing revolution, in which the printed word would be supplanted by the computer screen, was just around the corner. It wasn’t: for many, there is still little to match the joy of cracking the spine of a good book and settling down for an hour or two of reading. But a recent flurry of activity by big technology companies—including Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Yahoo!—suggests that the dream of bringing books online is still very much alive. Story