For those of us deeply involved with old books, the expired copyright material is the most interesting. This material can be freely copied and made available in full to anyone. That is just what Google, with the assistance of some prestigious libraries, is doing. The old books are currently coming from the university libraries of Oxford, Stanford, Harvard and Michigan, and the New York Public Library. Each has vast collections, parts of which are being made available for scanning. Google is underwriting much of the cost of this process. It will then make these listings available through its search engine. In fact, some already are and the number will be regularly increasing, though that number is as yet very small. A Google search for an old book may now not only find information about that book, or copies for sale, but the entire text of that book available to be read online. For more common books, where reprints are available for sale or copies may be found in numerous libraries, this is still a great convenience. For obscure books, perhaps only held at a handful of major libraries, it means these texts, previously only available to a few privileged scholars in the right location, will now be available to everyone.

For Google, this is an interesting expansion. Previously, they were strictly in the business of helping you find information. As long as someone else posted the information online, they would help you find it. Now Google has moved into the business of also providing information. This is a major step for them, and a plus for us searchers, provided, of course, it's all incremental, that they don't turn around and limit the amount of material posted by others.

Just how many books will be scanned and digitized at this point has not been stated. According to Harvard University's website, they will initially make 40,000 out of 15 million volumes available to Google. The University of Michigan does not appear to have put such limitations on the project, and Google is already busy scanning their books. However, scanning is apparently a hand process, so, at least using their current technology, we will not see millions of books posted online for a while yet. It is relatively slow, but it is a start.

The second group of books are those still under copyright. Google cannot post them as the literary rights are still privately held. This should ultimately prevent absolutely everything from becoming available online. However, Google is making some of these books at least partially available. For those books where the publisher offers permission, Google will search their text for matches to your search terms. However, Google will not make the full text available. It will make the page on which your search terms appear, and two pages forward and two pages back, available. If you want more, you will have to buy the book. Google will offer ads to booksellers on these pages, and will split the revenue they earn when someone clicks on one of these ads with the publishers.