A document can be described as a written representation of thoughts, ideas and or experiences. On the other hand, a book can be described as a collection of logically related documents. Documents come in different flavors. Some of the different types of documents include: audio documents, video documents, literary documents. In this article my references to documents will be of the literary type. Books, journals, and webpages are some of the different types of documents available to users out there. With the wealth of information available today the need for a veritable means of searching for high quality documents is imperative!
There are different methods of searching for documents. Some of the traditional ways of searching for documents or information include: Searching for books in a Public Library; Borrowing books from friends/acquaintances; Searching for books in a book store; Using search engines; and lastly Using online book portals [Library 2.0]. With the advent of the internet came about a proliferation of information: As at 2010, according to Google, there were about 130 million books in the world; As at 2011 also, there are about 267 million websites across the globe. With the overabundance of information available at the click of a mouse, a number of questions arise: how does a user find high quality documents/books? How does a user search through documents/books are at a reasonable rate? How does a user compare similar documents/books? How does a user collect documents/books? How does a user copy books/documents?
There are different methods of searching for documents. Some of the traditional ways of searching for documents or information include: Searching for books in a Public Library; Borrowing books from friends/acquaintances; Searching for books in a book store; Using search engines; and lastly Using online book portals [Library 2.0]. With the advent of the internet came about a proliferation of information: As at 2010, according to Google, there were about 130 million books in the world; As at 2011 also, there are about 267 million websites across the globe. With the overabundance of information available at the click of a mouse, a number of questions arise: how does a user find high quality documents/books? How does a user search through documents/books are at a reasonable rate? How does a user compare similar documents/books? How does a user collect documents/books? How does a user copy books/documents?
The traditional methods of information search [libraries etc.] have become deficient; a lot of the desires that book lovers all over the world want are left unfulfilled. The traditional search engines [Google e.t.c] do a better job by filtering a lot of the information for the user; however like an ex, they still leave the book lover yearning for what was missing. With unfair SEO tactics, machine based ranking of information, and other flaws, how does a user truly get to high quality content from a commercial search engine?
The concept of online book portals is the water needed to quench the fire of the relentless book lover in the search for unbiased high quality information. With book portals, collecting, preserving, organizing, selecting, bookmarking and disseminating books is a lot more convenient and a lot easier for the internet savvy user. Unfortunately, like any new ardor, there are some areas for improvement. Copyrighting issues and a lack of one primary e-book format are some of the challenges the online book portal space faces.
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