The Creativity of Browsing
The Google Lab continues to push the information envelope. It's called Google Books (Search) and it allows you to instantly search the full text of over a million digitized books. It was formally known as "Google Print" when it was introduced in October, 2004.
I've used it often and it's remarkable. Google has had to walk an incredibly thin line as it attempts to digitize books under copyright law. So, often you will get access to books with chapters missing or just summaries but that doesn't diminish the ability to get a sense of the style and content of a book.
You can enter key words or a subject and Google Books will deliver a book you can add to your digitized library. I recently researched books on quantum mechanics and astrophysics and created a library of over 20 books to reference. Everything from Walter Isaacson's Einstein: His Life and Universe to The First Three Minutes: A Modern View of the Origin of the Universe by Steven Weinberg.
I also downloaded Lewis Black and George Carlin as a mental sorbet from the mind-numbing theories of the cosmos.
Browsing and creativity? The most creative people I know are serial browsers. It's opening your mind to random ideas that have the opportunity to mingle and dance with other thoughts. It's all fuel for your imagination.
Here's the URL: http://books.google.com/
Creativity Central
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