Life & fun · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to How Will We Explore Books in the 21st Century?

This blog post explores methods for discovering knowledge within the Internet Archive's book collection beyond traditional card catalog and full-text search approaches. Written by an engineer at the Internet Archive… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. How Will We Explore Books in the 21st Century? launched in 2016; newer entries below may have overtaken it.

1. 1
   Instantly search 28M books from OpenLibrary▲424

   Books Search with Typesense

   2020 · books-search.typesense.org · its alternatives →

2. 2
   Sapiens▲185

   A brief history of humankind

   2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

3. 3
   Search: How the Data Explosion Makes Us Smarter ▲90

   Holds up a mirror to our time to see if search can keep up

   2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

4. 4
   Understanding Media▲70

   The Extensions of Man

   2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

5. 5
   The Dark Net▲62

   A revelatory examination of the internet

   2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

6. 6
   The Age Of Context▲57

   The increasing importance of context in tech and our lives

   2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

7. 7
   Tubes▲54

   A Journey to the Center of the Internet

   2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

8. 8
   100 Million Books▲186

   Discover a new book every time you open a new tab.

   2017 · its alternatives →

9. 9
   Kooba▲141

   An interactive graph for finding new books

   2017 · its alternatives →

10. 10
    Public Parts▲83

    How sharing in the digital age improves the way we work

    2015 · audible.com · its alternatives →

11. 11
    Kadaxis▲61

    Machine learning technology to increase visibility of books

    2016 · kadaxis.com · its alternatives →

12. 12
    The Sovereign Individual▲77

    Mastering the Transition to the Information Age

    2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

13. 13
    The Unsplash Book▲107

    The world's first 'fully' open source book

    2015 · kickstarter.com · its alternatives →

14. 14
    Textual Poachers▲61

    A canonical text of media studies

    2015 · amazon.co.uk · its alternatives →

15. 15
    We Need Diverse Books▲87

    Advocating and supporting non-majority narratives

    2014 · indiegogo.com · its alternatives →

16. 16
    The Knowledge▲62

    A too close to true novel

    2017 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

17. 17
    for / with / in▲54

    Experiments and conversations about design in the browser

    2015 · htmloutput.risd.gd · its alternatives →

18. 18
    The Internet of Us▲3

    Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data

    2016 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

19. 19
    Content Strategy for the Web▲57

    Better content means better business

    2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

20. 20
    The Beginning of Infinity▲64

    Exploration of the Nature and Progress of Knowledge

    2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

21. 21
    The New Digital Age▲59

    In the next decade, 5 bil new people will join the Internet

    2015 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

22. 22
    Chapter▲77

    Use AI to find your next favorite book

    2021 · its alternatives →

23. 23
    Oyster Books (web client)▲92

    Introducing the Oyster Web Reader

    2014 · its alternatives →

24. 24
    Future Crimes▲64

    Inside the Digital Underground

    2017 · amazon.com · its alternatives →

Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →