4 ms·
Great idea. Someone please build a public database of tables of contents and indexes, keyed by ISBN, so we can skip the scanning and OCR steps. And dear publish
by hirundo 8y ago
Great idea. Someone please build a public database of tables of contents and indexes, keyed by ISBN, so we can skip the scanning and OCR steps. And dear publishers: when this database emerges please add to it as you publish new works.
Thanks.
- jacques_chester 8y agoGoogle Books more or less did this already, with mixed results.
- bryanrasmussen 8y agomixed results engendered by lawsuit.
- amelius 8y agoThe lawsuits were only there because Google published the entire contents of all scanned books. But I guess making available only the index would fall under fair use. IANAL though.
- jen729w 8y agoEat Your Books [0] is amazing for this, but is limited to the cookery world. You tell it what books you own. It knows what’s in them but does not show you the contents. You search for whatever you have in the fridge. It tells you to go to book x, page y, and there’s the recipe. Oh, and it includes magazines. [0]: https://www.eatyourbooks.com/ https://www.eatyourbooks.com/
- yesenadam 8y agoHmm and to add more than 5 cookbooks you have to pay.. :-(
- efields 8y agoPaying for a service! Wow!
- yesenadam 8y agoDon't be snarky. I liked the idea, but really, not nearly enough to pay to index my cookbooks.
- reitanqild 8y agoSo how do you prefer the company collects money to pay their expenses?
- horsawlarway 8y agoSo why do you suppose he should care? It's not his business to figure out how they pay their expenses. It's his business to make value judgements for himself. He decided this service wasn't worth the cost.
- reitanqild 8y agoAs long as the pricing is right I appreciate that alternative. We complain a lot here (and to a certain degree, righly so) here on HN about annoying ads and creepy tracking so I will try to e positive when someone actually honestly makes a great product and asks for money instead of trying to extract it from profiling me and selling the profile.
- ensignavenger 8y agoAre you sure that their not doing both?
- reitanqild 8y agoDefinitely not, see an article I submitted the other day for proof: ) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17940617 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17940617 But: if something don't have an obvious way to monetize I fear one of three: - I'm not the user but the product - They're too idealistic and will disappear - They're looking to sell out to a bigger actor, -and then my data will be abused With an open source self hosted solution I can be somewhat safe. With a paid product there is a bigger chance they will be smart enough not to to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by selling out their paying customers. Example where this worked: Basecamp Example where this failed: WhatsApp
- Zanni 8y agoGreat idea. Even if it's not fair use (as amelius suggests below), I can imagine a lot of publishers would get on board, especially for technical books. It would increase the value of books that you buy, and if you search books you didn't own, point you to books you might want to buy.