Patent ID: 7287214

Claim:
A method of publishing a plurality of books for user access to information, the method comprising the steps of selecting a plurality of books, each book being in a layout form for hardcopy publication and not an electronic publishing format; providing a tool to detect characteristic features of the books, wherein the features include hierarchy features of the books; applying the tool to detect the hierarchical features of the books; applying the tool to extract text or data information of the books and to tag the extracted text or data information of the books with the hierarchical features; storing said tagged text or data information from the plurality of books in a publishing database; and arranging said publishing database as a searchable database configured for a user to remotely: access the database over a network or internet; search the text or data information for desired data; and view an image of a portion of the book with the desired data wherein the database is a relational database having said text or data information organized and related as chapter, section, subsection or other hierarchy, and wherein the step of arranging said database as a searchable database includes providing a search engine that scores search results based on their position in the hierarchy to determine their degree of relevance of text or data information located by the search engine.