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Google Makes Its First Public Domain Books Available OnlineGoogle has put the full text of over 10,000 public domain books online—the first large collection offered in its effort to digitize books from libraries and provide access to their contents through its search engine. The works, available though the Google Print website, are fully searchable and users can save individual page images. The titles include U.S. Civil War history books, government documents, and the writings of Henry James.“Today, we welcome the world to our library,” said Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, whose library is among those contributing to the project. “As educators we are inspired by the possibility of sharing these important works with people around the globe.” “Any researcher or student, whether they’re in New York or New Delhi, can now research and learn from these books that previously were only available in a library,” said Google Vice President of product Management Susan Wojcicki. Google also announced that it would soon end its three-month moratorium on scanning copyrighted materials. Although the company had previously said it would resume scanning November 1, three days into the month it had not yet restarted. Google spokesman Nate Tyler said the scanning would resume “soon,” the online CNet news service reported November 4. “We’re getting to it. It’s an operational thing,” said Tyler. The Association of American Publishers and the Authors Guild have filed lawsuits charging the program with copyright infringement. The same day that Google announced the availability of the public domain titles, Amazon.com announced two new programs allowing customers to purchase online versions of books. Amazon Pages will let people purchase only the pages of a title that they want, while Amazon Upgrade will give customers who have purchased a physical book the option of electronic access for an additional charge. “Amazon Pages and Amazon Upgrade leverage Amazon’s existing Search Inside the Book technology to give customers unusual flexibility in how they buy and read books,” said Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos November 3. “In collaboration with our publishing partners, we’re working hard to make the world’s books instantly accessible anytime and anywhere.” Bezos told CNet News the company plans to launch the services sometime next year. Meanwhile, Random House, the world’s largest trade publisher, said that it would allow online vendors to sell the content of its books online on a pay-per-page basis. The company will charge websites four cents per page for fiction and narrative nonfiction, with other types of content, such as cookbooks, likely costing significantly more, the Book Standard reported November 3. Vendors will be responsible for tracking page views and collecting payments, and for protecting against digital piracy. Authors will be allowed to opt out of the pay-per-page program. In yet another online-books initiative, Microsoft announced a partnership with the British Library to digitize the equivalent of 100,000 books from its collection and make the content available on the library’s website and on a new MSN Book Search service to be launched next year. The firm plans to initially invest $2.5 million in the project, the Financial Times reported November 3. Posted November 4, 2005. |
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