Not long ago Margaret reviewed Google Books. This week I was reminded of their competitor’s product Windows Live Search Books. I have known about it for awhile but haven’t really looked at it.

The interface is quit simple. Just search and enter. Of course this works great if you have something in mind. However, if you just want to browse what’s available you’ll have to pick a topic and search. I gave instruction for a History of Science class yesterday so Charles Dawin and theory of evolution are on my mind. I like that I can limit to 100% viewable books. I also like the cute bar that shows where in the book my keywords appear. The bar moves to the side when you open the book and the relevant page numbers and text appear to the left of the opened book. Great functions for checking passages or moving through the books. Searching the book’s text is also an option.

Unlike Google Books there is no tagging or storing to my library at this point. Likely just a matter of time before these and other features are available. You can download the book as a pdf.

I think it’s great that so many books are available online. I especially appreciate having so much content that can be considered primary source material for my History students. I’m just curious what’s next. Will this great access be retained? What do you think?