Google Books Hype and Public Domain
News announcement regarding the ability to download books online:
“I’m excited to announce that starting today, Google Books will offer free downloads of these and more than one million more public domain books in an additional format, EPUB. By adding support for EPUB downloads, we’re hoping to make these books more accessible by helping people around the world to find and read them in more places.” — Google Books
I tried the new service out today by stopping by Google Books. It’s hard to tell which of the books are even in the public domain. It seems that many of the offerings are not available for download (therefore, not in the public domain). I downloaded Treasure Island, since that was the example book and had to install a third party desktop app to open the EPUB version of the novel. I chose Stanza (since I’m familiar with the mobile app) and thought I’d try the desktop version.
It opened the book easily enough, but I’m not likely to read many novels on my computer screen. I have definitely made the switch to watching television shows and some movies on my laptop, but I’ve yet to read any substantial work. Even reading Anthem recently on the IPod Touch is a slow, occasional process. (Anthem is downloadable on Stanza, but there is no Download option on the Google Books version.)
It’s worth checking out nonetheless. Anything free is a good thing for students.