Google Print Book Search Debuts

By Geoff Duncan Published November 2, 2005

Search engine company Google has introduced a beta version of its controversial Google Print a new service aimed at making million of printed documents searchable via the Web. For now, the free Google Print enables users to search the complete text of public domain works, books, government documents, and other printed works free of copyright restrictions.

Users can enter search queries in the same way they normally use Google’s famous Web search engine; matches are returned in a format familiar to Google search users, with results grouped by book and featuring images of the book where the match was found along with author, genre, and size information. Matched items also include links to view the match and search for additional matches from the same book. Clicking a result displays a graphic image of the physical page of the book where the match was found: users may browse forward or backwards from the match for a few pages, but in copyrighted works Google Print quickly disables browsing or informs the user additional pages are restricted: one cannot view images of every page of a copyrighted book via Google Print, and Google says in some instances it may show as little as a few sentences of copyrighted works.

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Google places sponsored links prominently on many Google Print pages, but reportedly will not display advertisements on pages from public domain materials or books scanned from a library.

The material currently available via Google Print is the first collection of material to be scanned and indexed by Google since the company announced its ambitious project to scan the complete printed holdings of major libraries, starting with New York Public Library and the university libraries of Harvard, Oxford, Michigan, and Stanford. Google would then make the book contents

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