Mounting Frustration with Inadequate Ebook Searches
September 19, 2011
Have you ever tried to locate a particular genre of book in Amazon or Apple iTunes? Frustrating? Now what happens when you want to search within an eBook on Google. Frustrating? Ebook searching is frustrating to me and some of my colleagues here at Beyond Search. We often just ask a friend. Is that a message to search vendors?
The last few years has seen an explosion of eBooks enter the general reading market. When one makes the transition from paper to screen, they realize how much they took for granted in a good old fashioned book, such as flipping back to review something previously read. The article, Searching in Ebooks: A unique Use Case that Requires a Unique Approach , on O’Reilly Radar, points out the flaws in current eBook search engines as well as suggests improvements.
Everyone can agree that the flaw lies within the search engine results. The article explains that some eBooks searches are just plain jokes while others have almost got it right. After reviewing the options, the author has determined the recipe for a successful search engine:
So this means designing a search tool that:
- Returns accurate results (duh)
- Presents these results with plenty of surrounding context
- Highlights the term clearly on the destination page
- Makes it easy to quickly return to the original reading position
If 1) and 2) are done well, there are plenty of cases where the reader never has to deal with 3) and 4). So a big part of making a search tool helpful happens in the results list itself.”
The article points out several examples of what NOT to do when developing a search engine, and one example of an eBook currently in the market that has it right. The Inkling, a textbook eReader available on iPad, is the only eBook service out there that has gotten it right so far. He points to the sort options readers are given as the obvious answer to most eBook search problems.
Whether the eBook search problem can be fixed in a blog post on O’Reilly Radar is yet to be seen (though highly unlikely). What is evident is that if frustration borne of eBook search flaws resulted in this blog post, then there are probably thousands more eBook denizens complaining as well. With that much money at stake, the eBook manufacturers need to listen and respond accordingly. Is this one more indication that even “good enough” search is no longer “good enough”? Our beloved publisher Stephen E Arnold thinks so. Do you?
Catherine Lamsfuss, September 19, 2011
Sponsored by Pandia.com
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