[Web4lib] Google Allows Downloads of out-of-copyright Books

[Roy Tennant]

On 8/30/06 8:16 AM, "David J. Fiander" <dfiander at uwo.ca> wrote:

> Leslie Johnston wrote:
> 
>> It's definitely not consistently available yet, but here's an example:
>> 
>> http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC18938030&id=HKackp-vG-YC&pg=PA9&lpg=PA9
>> &dq=abbott+flatland
> 
> It's also only available within the United States.  While Flatland is most
> definitely in the public domain worldwide, we Canadians only get to see
> excepts, as if it was still a restricted text.

This is one of my gripes about Google Books. Although the work itself may be
clearly in the public domain, if a publisher has republished it and is
currently selling it, it is locked down on Google Books. Add to this the
fact that Google Books apparently knows nothing about the freely available
out of copyright works on the Internet and you have a ridiculous situation.
Sometimes you are actually much better off searching Google proper for a
book than you are Google Books, since Google *does* know about openly
available out of copyright works.
Roy