Amazon goes back in time

Continuing its push to make the sum total of human knowledge available at your fingertips, Amazon.com's British division has entered the antiquarian book market by licensing the British Museum's extensive catalog of more than 2.5 million titles.

Most importantly, BBC News explains, the deal makes information on 1.7 million pre-ISBN titles available to Amazon's customers. The online bookseller did not previously list works published before the book-identification scheme went into effect during the 1970s.

Of course, this probably means bad news for independent rare-book dealers, the Independent notes.