Google Print - Yes, Please!

(swiped from Google last Haloween)

In my various wanderings thorough the infinite bookshelves of the internet, I've discovered many a gem hidden within the multitude of pages. Many discoveries I've made have been through the wondrous entity of Google. Just as many have been links I've discovered on blogs, which, in turn, I discovered serendipitously through Google. Their special-event logos make me smile when I chance upon them, their webmail interface is insanely easy and wonderful, (since I often find that as soon as I delete an e-mail, I need to reference it), and doing random searches such as "[Your name] needs..." offer no end of amusement. All in all, Google is glorious. And they're constantly thinking up new ways to make information accessible to the world. And that's a good thing.

Google is now working on a new project called GooglePrint-- basically, access to every book ever written via the Google search bar. You search for something, and your search results consist of lines from every book on the planet that mentions it. You can then choose to access the actual text of the book from there. Out of print books, books that only exist in a few libraries or private collections, or books you saw once but have no idea where to get them are at your fingertips.

Imagine, being able to write a research paper and acquire obscure and out-of-print sources that aren't available in your local library or on websites. Professors could also easily spot plaigarism, since they could access the material just as easily as students. Imagine that you read a book as a child, and only remember a line or two, and want to find it again... GooglePrint could make that happen. An Online Card Catalog... with an infinite number of cards. A universal library, where none of the books are checked out! All with Google's marvelous simplicity.

On the flip side, publishers or authors have the right to withold their books from GooglePrint, if they wish, although having it available on the web gets the word out and provides millions of people with access to texts that otherwise would have a very narrow audience. Google's respect of copyright makes it so that you can't access the *entire* book if it's under copyright. Thus you can browse, but you don't get the books for free. On this note, as inevitably happens, people try to hack/steal books-- there was an article on Kuro5hin on how to hack GooglePrint, but Google obviously read it and fixed that. As tempting as getting "free" books are, I will inevitably amass hard copies of the books myself, cuz I'm a paper and ink sort of girl.

The only (quasi-) drawback to this project would be the strain on my wallet. ^_^ With an infinite amount of books available, I'd be able to look through knitting books and see just how wonderful many of them are, and then I'd have to go out and purchase them. To be able to peruse books before purchasing them, to be able to read and access old books just as you could in a library... That's my idea of heaven on earth.

Here are the links I found referencing GooglePrint and exposing me to this wonderful project:
Google Print site
Google Print Information Site (FAQ)
Google Blog - Editorial explaining GooglePrint written by CEO of Google in the Wall Street Journal (what spurred this entry)
Google Blog - Why Google believes in Google Print
(You may need to create a Google account... do it! Gmail is so worth it, and GooglePrint is the icing on the cake!)

All Hail Teh Google!