Searchable Books: Microsoft is Next This much is clear: More books are going to be searchable in more places on the Internet. Yesterday Microsoft announced a plan to establish MSN Book Search. Set to begin rolling out in beta next year, they aim to gather “content from books, academic materials, periodicals and other print resources.” The initial focus is clearly on materials in the public domain, and to that end Microsoft has joined the Open Content Alliance (OCA) that was announced a few weeks ago, and will pay $5 million to fund the scanning of 150,000 books under the supervision […]