That is awesome... I am glad that google was the first to do this, since I am a big fan of everything google (GMAIL, GTALK, G-Everything!!).

I cannot find the article (looked for 1/2 hour).. but i swear that yahoo tried to do this first.. They did not seem to succed since google now has it and I cannot find ANYTHING on Yahoo's effort.

If anyone can update me on the progress of Yahoo's digital library, I would like to know..

GOOOO GOOGLE!!

As I remember, Yahoo has joined a rival consortium that proposes to do much the same thing, but it is still in the planning stages. Google owes a great debt to Project Gutenburg, which has provided the texts of over 10,000 important novels, histories, and philosphies written before 1920. While many books and translations are complete, since they are in public domain, more recent texts are incomplete
Even given this extremely important caveat, having major extracts of modern books is certainly a boon to students and internet researchers.

I would venture to say, however, that the legal battle that is bound to begin shortly, will be interesting. Our Congress (bless their little heads) will no doubt have to reconsider both the copywrite law, and the fair use provisions in due time.

Regards,
John

If yahoo were to do this, they would charge you for the "advance features." For almost every service they provide they offer a payment for "certain features."

But I'm glad to see Google too be creating new services.

Ibiblio.org has been at this since I can remember. There are a couple of other open-source-book sites that offer out-of-copyright books. I have been using various such websites since at least 2000. Not exactly a new idea, and google is definitely not the first to come up with it.

If you are impatient to start downloading out-of-print books, don't wait for google or yahoo, check out Ibiblio.org. Or, do a google search for project Gutenberg!

Looks like you beat me to the punch! I have been filling my hard drives with Project Gutenberg's books for several years now. There is simply no other place to get some out-of-print books!

I see no reason for a legal battle, since it looks like the same thing as ibilio.org, which has been in operation for quite some time now. I imagine there are several bored, underemployed attorneys out there who disagree with me.