Google books is simply an amazing online library resource. Since Google began to scan and digitize the books that sit in the world’s great libraries (at Harvard, Yale, and the University of Virginia, for example), authors, book sellers, and book publishers have been up in arms. Until the legalities are resolved, we can take advantage of the convenience of finding books that are often not in the public domain from the comfort of our homes. Unless they are entirely free of copyright infringement, most of the books that you can access through Google book search are partially complete. One can still glean an enormous amount of information in those partial books, however. Obscure authors of out-of-print books seem to be less incensed by this practice than their publishing houses, since their words are once again seeing the light of day and being READ. (Click on the links below to read more details about the controversy.)
One of my favorite finds is the Illustrated Jane Austen, a compilation of Jane’s six great books and two additional minor works. I have been reading Emma and Sense and Sensibility in anticipation of the last two airings of The Complete Jane Austen on PBS. You can imagine how delighted I was to view the illustrations by Hugh Thomson in this digitized book.
- Click here to read Google’s rationalization for scanning the world’s books
- This overview of the controversy was published by Business Week in 2005
- And here is an assessment of the situation from Law.com
- Click here to read my other post about Hugh Thomson
- Jane Austen: E-texts at Austen.com are beautifully presented and easy to read.
Jane Austen's World 
I love this resource also. Google books is wonderful, and if it goes away, will be a great loss to me, and the reading community. Thanks, Laurel Ann
Well, you know how I am about electronic books. :-)
I can understand that authors wish to protect their copyrights, but having the books online and available in a limited way is a good thing. It gives readers a “taste” to decide if they want to buy it–and many will.
For research books, it’s fantastic to have them available, because sometimes you just need a little piece of what’s in a particular book.
And for public domain stuff, it’s wonderful to be able to access the information contained in them when the paper copies aren’t always accessible.
I say, carry on, Google. (And there’s really no reason to think the public domain stuff, at least, will go away.)
[…] Place at Jane Austen’s World has post about the Thomson illustrated Complete Jane Austen, with a link to Google […]
[…] Illustrated Jane Austen […]
Simply want to say your article is as tonishing. The clearness in your put up is solely spectacular and that i can assume you are an professional on this subject. Properly along with your permission permit me to grab your rss feed to maintain updated with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please keep up the gratifying work.