| Google Books was initially started back in 2002 when | | | | which are in no way intrusive or detrimental to the |
| a group of Google employees pondered how long it | | | | service. |
| would take to scan and archive every book ever | | | | From the Google Books site you can perform |
| written. | | | | searches, add books to your virtual library or organise |
| While the first scan was done manually on a 300 | | | | your collection in a logical manner. Searching for a |
| page book and took 40 minutes to process, Google | | | | book and then subsequently clicking on it opens an |
| now use cameras capable of scanning at a rate of | | | | interface which allows you to either view the directly |
| 1,000 pages an hour and also work with 20,000 | | | | scanned pages from the book or in some instances a |
| publisher partners who provide content directly. They | | | | 'plain text' version. This plain text can then be copied |
| have also been able to provide over 1 million books | | | | and passed to another application or simply printed |
| that can be read in full from cover to cover; these | | | | out for reading offline. |
| unrestricted works are either books that have fallen | | | | In order to stay within the law, books under |
| out of copyright or have been provided with | | | | copyright have limits placed on the number of |
| publishers express permission. | | | | viewable pages. Despite the fact that this is akin to |
| As well as simply scanning the books, Google | | | | simply flicking through the book in a bookshop there |
| performs OCR (Optical Character Recognition) on the | | | | have rather predictably been a number of lawsuits. |
| pages, thereby turning them in to pure text which | | | | The most notable lawsuit would have been the case |
| can be entered in to their database. As a result when | | | | between the Publishing Industry, the Actors Guild and |
| you do a Google Search you are now not only | | | | Google which say Google pay out a total of $125 |
| returned results from relevant websites but also your | | | | million. This paid not only for court costs of the |
| search terms are checked against a library | | | | plaintiffs but also went on to create a 'Book Rights |
| encompassing millions of books and appropriate | | | | Registry' which collects revenue from sites such as |
| matches are suggested for further reading. | | | | Google and disburses it amongst authors. |
| The integration in to the Google Search engine | | | | On the whole I am again amazed that Google have |
| means you may have already inadvertently stumbled | | | | been able to offer such an incredible gift to the |
| across Google Books but if you haven't and are | | | | world. Google Books has the potential to preserve |
| eager to explore then the Google Books can be | | | | centuries of human literacy work for generations to |
| found by visiting the site directly. Being a Google | | | | come. It also serves to promote the spread and |
| service, it almost goes without saying that the | | | | availability of knowledge amongst all groups and all |
| service is completely free of charge and is instead | | | | classes of people. |
| paid for via a minimal number of sponsored links | | | | |