Not quite sure how or when I missed this, but I discovered while working on the preceding post that Google Print is up and running in beta. I recall hearing about this project late last year but the fact the beta was actually up somehow escaped me.
The beta not only provides a variety of info and links on books within the database, including excerpts, it also searches the text of books within the project. The content comes from book publishers and Google’s Library Project, an effort to digitize the book collections of several major research libraries and make this content searchable through Google Print.
I’ve noted before that this may be another example of the conflict between new technology and our copyright laws. This conflict was again reflected last week when a New York court ruled that musical recordings no longer protected by federal copyright law may be protected by common law.
The greatest university of all is a collection of books.
Thomas Carlyle
