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

[Thomas Dowling]

On 8/30/2006 11:27 AM, Roy Tennant wrote:

> 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...


Google Books is primarily a funnel to get users to online book sellers
(similarly, Google Scholar is a funnel to get users to pay-per-article
download sites).  That's why they're okay with having a lousy e-book
interface; it's really a passable retail catalog interface.

I also wonder how useful it is - or at least, how likely it is to be
used - to have a freely downloadable PDF of Tom Sawyer that weighs in at
15MB (for about 400k of text) or Mansfield Park at over 20MB (text size
890k).  I know it isn't a 28kbps world any more, but still.


-- 
Thomas Dowling
tdowling at ohiolink.edu