Strangely exciting. Amazon.com comes through on its promise to allow shoppers to search the text of books so that they can find exactly what they want.

Amazon.com: Books / Search Inside the Book

Wired Story

[10/25 10:48 a.m. Edited to add] I think that the pedagogical implications here are great. For the last day I've been thinking about all the possible ways that Amazon can pay me back for all of the books, music, and electronics that I was "forced" to buy! :-)

As our library collection and the library website interface leaves a lot to be desired, I often have students look at other library sites or on Amazon when doing some initial research. This feature moves Amazon up on the list. Now, not only can students do keyword searches for Library of Congress subject words, but now they can search whole texts for words and phrases. How often have we wondered where else we've seen a word or phrase when we come across it in another book? This can give us the ability to find which other sources have used these words. Damned Exciting!