That’s a mashup of Google and The Gutenberg Project, in case you were wondering.
Imagine those two in cahoots. Especially now.
Now Web users can use Google’s powerful servers not only to look up words in the Dickens novel, but also to download a copy — a process that can take anywhere from a few seconds to about 15 minutes, depending on the size of the book and the speed of the user’s Internet connection. The book arrives as a set of scanned images from a printed copy of the book, and some include original drawings, library markings and notes jotted in the margins by previous borrowers. Google Book Search’s copy of “A Tale of Two Cities" was scanned from a copy printed in 1908 by the University Society. A rubber stamp on an inner page indicates that the original book was obtained by the Harvard College Library in 1942.Google won’t say how many books are currently in its index. But with the ability to scan books at six of the world’s biggest libraries, Google’s library of public domain titles could surpass that of the Gutenberg Project, which contains about 16,000 titles.
When was the last time that I linked to the Boston Globe? Never? That’s what I thought. Strange, that.
For now, the Google Book Search service offers full downloads only of “public domain" books, whose copyrights have expired. These include many of the most famous titles of all time, such as the writings of Dickens , Shakespeare , and Dante.
Why, thanks again, Google. Also thanks to the good people at Project Gutenberg, who I should probably put a permanent link to somewhere. Why, I just downloaded Dante’s Inferno today (no, not as a roadmap). However, as you can see from the article, Yahoo and Microsoft are teaming up to create an alternative book download service. Oh no! Can Google succeed?
With all due respect to this movie:
Prince Microsoft: Your Google is dead. I killed it myself.
Princess Buttercup: Then why is there fear beneath your eyes?
Indeed.
