Using Google's Book Search service, Web surfers hunting titles like Dante's "Inferno" and Aesop's "Fables" will be able to download PDF files of the books for later reading, to run keyword searches or to print them on paper. Up to now, the service only allowed people to read the out-of-copyright books online.
Useful idea? Sure. But it's hardly a new one. For example, Michael Hart (Wikipedia entry) and Project Gutenberg have been making books available online for 35 years and allowing downloads in a number of formats.
Here are a few sample searches (using titles promoted in the news stories) of Google Book Search along with a list of more sources for full text books.
+ A Google Book Search for Aesop's Fables. We've also limited the search to "full view" books. The first 10 results (when we searched) do NOT include the original Aesop's Fables by Aesop.
Another title mentioned is Dante's "Inferno". Here's a search for that title limited to full view books. We did not find the book in the Top 20 results. However, an advanced search limited to author does show the book and it's available for printing. Will people take the time to limit by author? Again, the PDF versions do not allow browsing by chapter and for those of you who like scanned fingers (this was a meme going around a few week's ago) look at page 5.
OTHER SOURCES Project Gutenberg just celebrated its 35th anniversary. You'll see they provide several versions (various translations) of Aesop's Fables available for download. In the case of this title, it can be downloaded in numerous formats including:
+ HTML
+ Plain text
+ MS Lit for PocketPC
+ Palm Database More info here including history and various FTP sites located around the world.
What follows is the a very small tip of a very large iceberg.
The World eBook Library
Here, in one place, access to over 330,000 full text books and growing. All in PDF and ready for printing. The cost? Only $8.95/year. They plan to have over 500,000 titles by 2007. Institutional memberships are also available. Titles in more than 100 languages and powerful advanced search features. A guided tour is available here. NOTE: The World eBook Library just completed the World eBook Fair where their ENTIRE library was available at no charge. Another eBook Fair will be coming in October.
2) International Children's Digital Library
From the University of Maryland. Here's a list of some recently added books. Very impressive!!! The search interface is amazing and is the way the books are presented. We also love the "Simple" search interface.
NOTE: The books here are not available for printing but the scanning is impressive and so is the presentation we thought it was worth an entry.
3) Shop ebrary
Many know this service as one licensed to libraries. However, they also offer over 20,000 NEW books free. All you need to do is put a minimum of $5 on account. You are only charged to print or copy a page. About 25 cents.
4) NetLibrary Text and Audio Books
Lots of content including books from Project Gutenberg that can be printed and nicely organized by chapter. Many libraries of all types offer this service for free. All you need is a library card. Both OLD and just released books. Again, a library card is all you need. We sure wish OCLC would do more to help libraries promote these services.
5) The Online Books Page at the University of Pennsylvania provides access to 10s of thousands of free books. As you'll see here, new books are added daily. Access to all books, free.
See Also: DigitalBookIndex
Making of America (MoA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology. The collection currently contains approximately 9,500 books and 50,000 journal articles with 19th century imprints.
Digital images of over 16,000 pages of sheet music from 3042 pieces published in the United States between 1850 and 1920.
Images are .jpg files and can be printed.
See Also: Using CustomizeGoogle, a well-known (over 5 million downloads) and very robust program for Firefox you can restablish right-click image printing for any Google Book Search book page.
See Also: Looking for Some Digitized "Historic" Video? Check out a Few Databases at the Bottom of this Post
A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »
Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.
A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?
Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.
What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?
Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).
FreePint Family
Quilting big data threads
The fallacy of information overload
Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure? 
