Just a word to let you know how much I appreciate receiving the newsletter.

Thanks very much.

Regards,

Bob Benham

for Book World
www.go-bookworld.com
2353 S. Havana St. D-18
Aurora, CO 80014, USA

Bruce E. McKinney and Michael Stillman,

There were some important differences between the Microsoft and Google Book projects as seen by the end user.

Search

The Google search is lightweight and does not burden the browser on the client machine or Internet connection. An advanced search is available and functional.

In Microsoft the search required processing and network resources. A search pulled up a list with a preview window on the right. If the mouse hovered over an entry in the result list on the left, the data for the book was loaded via AJAX and displayed in the preview window. This occurred even when you didn't want it unless you were careful to place the pointer on the right edge of the list, outside of the hot spot for each entry. No advanced search was offered.

Tab browsing

In a Google search results page, browsers with tabs (Firefox, Safari, IE7) can open the book pages in these tabs (CTRL-click on Win, Cmd-click on Mac, or right click on either) while maintaining the search result list.

Attempts on Microsoft to CTRL-click or Cmd-click the links would open a new tab with the book browser but would also replace the search result page with the full-screen book browser. Only a right-click (Open Link in New Tab) would work to get the expected behavior of opening just the desired results in tabs.

Book Browser

The Google book browser could be improved by including the bibliographic and PDF file size information in the right-side data pane. The default file names for the PDFs were reasonable but I often chose to include a year and author as well as the title provided.

The Microsoft book browser allowed PDF downloads as well but the names were not as useful and always had to be renamed for my purposes.

PDF searching

The Microsoft PDFs included a text layer which allowed keyword searching offline in Adobe Acrobat. The Google PDFs do not allow this. Both book browsers allowed online keyword searching.

Scope of Material

The Microsoft and Google projects generally had different books scanned. It is possible that each group tried to prioritize volumes not scanned by the other. Hence, it was usually worthwhile to check both systems. There was not a single search system to pull up results from both projects. Perhaps a mashup would have appeared eventually if the Microsoft project had continued. A Google web search could bring up Google books.

Where are the Microsoft books now?

Many of the Microsoft PDFs came from other book scanning projects such as those which are stored on www.archive.org. While the Microsoft system had only the PDFs, the Archive.org editions are often available in multiple formats such as plain text in addition to the PDFs (sometimes in color and grayscale).

Because of this origin, the Microsoft PDFs did not have usage restrictions as Google has tried to add. For public domain works, this extra licensing is hard to justify and might not be permitted under the US copyright laws.

The downside to unrestricted PDFs from Microsoft/Archive.org is that some enterprising individuals have sent these files (warts and all) to print on demand systems to "publish" these books. These have been listed in quantity in the used book databases and eBay, making it harder for buyers to locate vintage copies as they wade through the sometimes overpriced POD reprints.

This is part of the nature of public domain material. A person can try to sell an abridged Horatio Alger, Jr., print on demand volume for more than $100 when the PDF which was used to create the reprint is available free of charge. What I don't like is when an old copy, scanned in a library, has its access blocked or restricted because one of these POD reprints exists.

Google has also blocked or restricted access to pre-1923 items which should be positively public domain. A bound volume of 1910s Publishers' Weekly magazine cannot be construed to be protected. However, it is likely that Google is granting additional protection to avoid creating another litigant against them. The problem with this is that it effectively grants more rights, in terms of copyright duration, to these publishers than that to which they are entitled.

Summary

I liked the PDF search capability of the Microsoft/Archive.org files. I suggested to Google that they add this. Perhaps it would be time consuming to add the text layer to the existing PDFs. However, I found the Google search interface to be much more powerful in capability and less tedious to use on my older laptop system.

I hope Google continues to refine and improve their book offering. For example, the recent announcement of a 300M XML document with US book copyright renewal records from 1923 to 1963 provides a single place to check for renewals. A listing basically says the book is still protected. However, a lack of a listing makes a case for public domain status. Anyone who has taken a logic class knows about the difficulty of proving something with a lack of evidence.

My own research projects have benefited from both book projects. I have discovered texts which would be impossible to locate without them. No library or bookstore provides level of content access these projects have made available. I have purchased a number of books as a result of discoveries on these systems. I have also downloaded dozens of PDFs for later reference.

While the Microsoft one had some useful material, I hope most of it is still available on Archive.org.

James D. Keeline
San Diego, CA

Full-time antiquarian bookseller, 1988-2000
Full-time web developer, 2000-2008

www.Keeline.com

Dear Bruce & all at AE,

I sell books on the internet from Gloucester, England. I used to run a bricks and mortar store with my partner, but since we split I rarely meet other booksellers. I really love your monthly newsletter and feel like it is putting me in touch with what is going on in the world of books, quite different from the on-message messages I get from ABE!

Keep up the good work,

Sam Knowles
Ampersand Books
Gloucester
England

Hello,

Catching up with back issues after being gone for a month and have just read Karen Wright's delightful book buying trip article and I have a tip to pass on to her.

We also use Motel 6 on buying trips and this last trip I discovered a great help for the "Motel 6 Smell". I took along a big can of Lysol Disinfectant Spray in "Crisp Linen Scent". The first thing I did when entering a smelly room was to spray the drapes, the top layer of the bedspreads and some into the ceiling air return vents if there was one. By the time we unloaded the luggage, the smell was always gone. Only in one motel did I need to spray the carpet and rarely did I need to re-spray if we stayed over.

I will never travel without it again!

Barbara Young
The Old Book Shop
http://www.oldbookshop.com

re: Abebooks Price Increase

Dear Bruce & AEMonthly:

I think you're missing some of the ABE increases (1) and the bigger point (2).

1) ABE is now collecting a commission on books over $400. Before this, the commission was capped at a $400 maximum. They also announced plans to take over Discover and American Express card processing as well.

2) I need to raise shipping & sales tax 15.61% to recover the actual original cost/charge of ABE credit card processing and commissions. They were already making about 2.5% on shipping by virtue of their 5.5% credit card processing fee, which is about double what the credit card companies charge them, thus making their actual cut on shipping about 10%.

Sincerely,

Peter Gambitsky

Fireside Angler

Re: Abebooks' Price Increase

Dear AE:

Where did this "Michael Stillman" come from? The one that wrote the article on the ABE commission on shipping? It appears he was giving us good reason as to why ABE should take this commission and telling us to live with it! Well here is what I run into a lot with shipping.

I'm a Canadian small bookstore located in Langley, British Columbia, I charge a $9.00 shipping fee (which is cheap for Canada, our postage is enormous); average size book from BC to Ontario costs me $12.60 shipping. I shipped a $10.00 book to customer in Ontario:

$10.00 book charge + 9.00 shipping = 19.00 total
minus shipping to ON = 12.60 minus book cost = 2.00
(sometimes more/less)
minus credit card = .85
(average ????)
minus 8% = 1.52
minus packaging = 1.20 (envelope/labels/printing paper/cartridges) invoices

TOTAL = 18.17 costs - 19.00 = .83 _ OH YES I FORGOT MY MONTHLY FEE! Wow so now I'm paying to sell! So with Abe taking their 8% of my shipping .72 cents yes that will leave me with a profit of .11 cents (maybe).

ABE is in it for the $ not the customer, small book stores are going broke with ABE, many of us want to leave and are looking for alternatives. ABE recognizes that we do not have many choices and plays on that for their profit. They are unethical. Abe should go after the dealers they say are messing with the shipping. Abe needs some heavy-duty competition, they are worse than our Canada Postal Service when it comes to squeezing money out us.

Please don't say to increase your shipping fees, that will only give me fewer customers and ABE more money. ABE has not done one thing since I have been with them, about 6 years, to increase the seller's profit, only to increase theirs!

Any help with this would be sincerely appreciated.

Sincerely,

Rita of
Mole's Collectibles (Books)
Langley, BC V3A 1M2
Canada


Editorial Response:

It was not my intention to take sides in this issue but simply to report on what happened. As a result, I published both AbeBooks' explanation and the objections we heard from booksellers.

In terms of advising sellers to "live with it" or move on, my observation over the years is that while Abe does have forums to hear their sellers concerns, ultimately they call the shots and rarely roll them back in any substantial way. That being the case, I don't see much else a bookseller can do besides either cutting the cord or living with the rates, though that may require increasing your prices, since you cannot make up for unprofitable sales with volume. If there is a third way, I and many others undoubtedly would be interested in knowing, but such things as boycotts rarely seem to have an impact.

Regards,
Mike Stillman