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Sony/Google hit 1 million books
July 29, 2009 | 9:08 am
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By Paul Biba
It’s really amazing when you think about it. A few years ago about all we had was Project Gutenberg and some of us were struggling to read those books on our PDAs. Now we are at the point where we have dedicated ereaders, which are rapidly becoming commoditized, and we can actually choose among 1,000,000 public domain books, not to mention pay-per-read books.
And the nice thing? This is still only the beginning.
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Comments:
Unless you’re a Mac user where you have no access to the Connect software and where there is no alternative easy to use web search to find the books.
Have you ever tried navigating the PG website?
At the IDPF conference the Sony VP “promised” that a Mac version would be available, but wouldn’t give a time frame. Wonder what’s taking them so long.
Is there any way to verify this number? It’s huge, and if true, is a great boon to us all (so long as google continues, and continues to play nice; not so long ago google books would not release public domain texts that a current publisher had reprinted).
I see no way on google books to browse the ‘free public domain’ titles only. Maybe I need to buy a Sony Reader in order to be able to do that?
Pond says “I see no way on google books to browse the ‘free public domain’ titles only.”
It is possible to restrict a Google Book search to fully accessible titles by using the Advanced Book Search webpage. Clicking the “Full view only” option will assure that search results only include works that are fully readable. That includes many public domain titles together with books that rights holders have designated readable.
Unfortunately, there are still works in the public domain that have been scanned but remain inaccessible with Google Books. For example, T. S. Eliot’s collection of essays “The Sacred Wood” from the 1920s is findable in multiple editions, but the content is locked up. Some editions have later dates, e.g., 1945, 1960, and 1969. Yet there is an edition dated 1920 that is labeled “No preview available”.
Luckily, the text of an edition of “The Sacred Wood” dated 1922 is available at the Bartleby website. Sadly, even works at Bartleby have no guaranteed stability. A note on the welcoming page says “Due to financial and usage considerations the reference works licensed from Columbia University Press and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt have been removed as of June 2009.”