According to Google there are currently 7 million text available in there library. 1 million in full preview mode as part of formal publisher agreements. Another 1 million are public domain works. This means that these 2 million texts may be fully accessed via the web without the need of obtaining a hard copy. Most of the other 5 million aren't in print or commercially available. Google today can only show snippets of their text.
In comparison Sun’s libraries contain 3.18 million volumes, which are only available through their on campus libraries.
Through the Google Book Search anybody may have access to the materials and at the same time. Hard copies may only be used by one user at a time. Have you ever been frustrated by the materials placed on hold by a professor for an entire class?
Another limitation to the hard copy model is the limited space within brick and mortar libraries. There are only so many volumes a building may house. Either new facilities have to be built or volumes eliminated in order to make space. With the Google model older texts may be archived off campus and made available via the internet using their service. This would lead to access maintained to these volumes at little additional cost, certainly less than building new libraries.
4 comments:
I've a question. Has Google converted all the 7 million books into the digital version? If I pay the fee, can I download the digital version? I've used its preview mode, however one thing frustrats me is that you can only read it online but you can't download it to your hard-drive. Which means you can't work where there is no internet.
The concept is revolutionary for libraries, I would expect. However, I have the same question as Patrick- since it is hard to read a whole book at one sitting, and you may want to refer back to it, is it possible to download these books onto your hard drive? Especially texts that you need for a whole semester- it would be great to keep the book in your computer and refer to it anytime, anywhere (sounds similar to the Amazon Kindle, without the gadget).
I'm not aware of any way to download the material as of yet. I suspect Google is trying to create the ground floor for this functionality once publishers modernize and cave to digitally formatted texts. Once they do that then Google will already in place to service their needs. Until then Google books is serving as middleman between the digital world and physical texts.
I'm actually amazed by Google's effort to make books (from the not copyright-ed to the copyright-ed one) accessible from internet. I thank Google for that. That's how I think knowledge should be treated. Make it as easy as possible to be accessed by all people.
I have always curious about Google Books Project. Therefore, really glad you chose this topic. :)
By the way, I think only the "Full View" books that are download-able.
I've tried to open a "Full view" book, and I managed to download it and save it to my hard drive. It's interesting that once you finished download the books in pdf, you may see "Google Usage Guidelines" in the beginning of the page. :)
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