A German Book Search Engine: Libreka!
Libreka! is a Book Search Engine by German Publishers and Booksellers.
Our German volunteer Britta translated this information from a German article for AltSearchEngines.
On the occasion of the Frankfurt Book Fair, this full-text search engine libreka! was introduced. Booksellers are constantly plagued by too little space. Retailers try to meet the comprehensive book offerings in Germany with electronic catalogs. But that only helps customers who know exactly what kind of book they want.
The person who wants to browse around and then buy a book because the passage he/she read was interesting will be disappointed. But that might change if enough publishers and bookstores participate at the new libreka! project (Formerly www.volltext-suche.de).
While using a computer with an Internet connection, the customer can browse around even in the smallest library and their great books without having them physically exist. Although libreka! is designed as a full-text search, each publisher determines how much text of the book will be made available. Publishers can assign access-rights for different user groups. Selected bookstores could get the right to access the entire book while the user might only be allowed to view 15 pages, print (as .pdf documents) or save them.
Libreka! pursues the vision of becoming the leading platform for the German book industry. A search within current books has been available at the online book retailer Amazon for a long time. With the feature Search-Inside a full-text search is implemented. Libreka! isn’t really mainstream because of the usage costs. Users will find it difficult to find insider tips and lesser in-demand titles with libreka!.
