A method and system for publishing a plurality of books for user access includes selecting a plurality of books, converting each book from a layout or publication digital data form, by providing and applying a tool to detect characteristic features (such as layout, typeface, and hierarchical or organizational features such as chapter headings, captions, drawings and tables), and extracting text or data information of the book tagged with the features. This produces a searchable publishing database indexed by book structure such that a user may remotely, access the database, search desired text data, and view an image of a portion of the book with the desired data. A search engine may score search results based on their position in the hierarchy or other factors, determining degree of relevance of text or data information located by the search engine.