Slashdot Mirror
Google's Library Up and Running
An anonymous reader writes "It seems that Google Print results are beginning to appear on searches. For
those who don't know, Google has been scanning from libraries from some of the world's
greatest universities in order to compile a freely accessible online library. An easy way to turn up these results is to simply type "book", and then
whatever you want to search for.
For instance, book origin of species will turn up the
full text of Charles Darwin's controversial treatise. 20,000
leagues, Oliver Twist and Pride and
Prejudice and m o r e are all there in full.
It'll be interestin to see how publishers deal with this if demand for these
books declines. In the meantime, would anyone like to point out any good books?" Hopefully, Google can also start to index some books that are being released in the Creative Commons/alternative open licenses.
It would be great if textbooks were on there. $120 is too much for a calculus book.
I know this is cliche, but Grapes of Wrath is a classic, and one of my alltime favorites. I've read it four or five times, and it gets better each read. Yeah, it's always in the "list", but it deserves to be.
Another favorite of mine is more related to what /.-ers are about. Read
Player Piano by Vonnegut. It's not his most well know work, but it
is, I think, maybe one of his best, certainly one of his most perceptive.
Just my $.02.
Out of print books online is a great idea, but what I can't understand is why google doesn't have a page that just lists the books they have in full-text. They compare it to a bookstore, but in a bookstore you can see books you have never heard of. You can't do that with google's library because you can only search for books that you know.
From the Harvard FAQ at: http://hul.harvard.edu/publications/041213faq.html ...
Will this include books still in copyright? Google will be scanning books that are in as well as out of copyright from the Harvard collections. Harvard-owned books in the public domain will be available in the search results. Google may choose to display descriptive catalog information for books that are still under copyright. We believe that Google's treatment of in-copyright works is consistent with copyright law.
If I'm reading this correctly, that Google is placing the text of copyrighted works into a freely searchable and viewable database, it's an amazingly brazen step. It's also incredibly useful, but I can't imagine book publishers lying down for this. Add to this Disney's propensity for lobbying for extending copyrights everytime Mickey Mouse comes up for entering the public domain and I think we're headed for an interesting copyright showdown.
I'm a big tall mofo.
when I clicked the link for "origin of species" the google-book results are links to books you can **buy** with a small number of sample pages to look at.
After the google-books results, you get the ordinary google results, some of which *do* link to online texts.
To find Darwin's book on line to read, rather than buy, just use regular google. Book search seems to be just a commercial venture.
Or am I missing something?