Google Print

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Google Print

We have been working with Google as a publishing partner and the progress reports are below.

This is the latest information

It is now called Google Book Search

When you perform a Google search you might be offered the prompt to try Google Book Search at the top and bottom of the results page.

You can search for the words in exactly the same way and the summary results are shown in their context as normal.

When you select a result this time you see the actual page.

There are limits to what you can see:

	A few pages cannot be viewed for copyright reasons
	You cannot use the print or copy functions. Google has done a good job to prevent people pinching pages. (The 'screen print' is a system level command so can still be used if you are desperate for an image of a page)
	After you have looked at a few pages you will be forced to register. There is nothing sinister about this as far as one can see. Just an opportunity for Google to do some marketing.

The system is still in its Beta test stage of testing.

If you find a book indispensable there are link to a range of suppliers.

A personal experience of using Google Book Search:

'I am just checking the proofs of a history book I have written. It was great to have access to the range and quality of information on-line, saving days when compared with same task undertaken in the university library. Along the way I discovered a relevant book by a friend which I was able to order through the links provided on the page.' Chas Jones 23/11/05

During 2004 Google started work on putting together a system for online users designed to reproduce the browsing experience you can achieve in a bookshop. Google has been collecting books from publishers and turning them into digital text.

The rationale for including books within the scope of Google’s search is that so much quality information is locked up in books. Nobody questions the volume of information on the web but the quality is variable. Traditionally publishers have provided a quality check on the work that finds its way into print. But the web does not have any ‘bouncers’ to control who gets published.

The Google Print process has had some glitches and a few small delays, which is no surprise given the volume of the task they have set themselves. Rather gallantly, Google postponed one launch because they had not managed to include the work of all the early adopters, such as WritersPrintShop. So they waited until they had digitised all of the first batch of books. It has taken nearly a year but the rollout is starting now.

Google’s plan is to allow people to find and read sections of books online. What the browser will see is the actual, scanned page from the book. You can then turn pages to read on. Google is putting limits on the amount someone can read, not just in one session but over time. Publishers have the power to set this limit and the consensus has set the limit at 20%.

Google will also disable the right-click facility to prevent people saving pages although no one can guarantee that people won’t find a way to circumvent this. The pages will provide links to various bookshops to make it easy to buy the book.

So Google Print is set to make the information locked up in books visible as a part of the normal Google Search. It will allow readers to browse through the pages and it makes it easy to buy the books so the publishers and writers should be happy. Google Scholar is on the way and this will allow virtually open access to some classic texts.

However, as with any innovation, there is some resistance. See the recent news item and Google’s comments below. The publishing industry is divided between those who see innovations as threats rather than opportunities. They might take a look at the corporate music industry for a model of wasted opportunities.

WritersServices hopes that this will indeed help sales of books and our WritersPrintshop self-publishing service offers this facility for writers to promote their books. Whatever the wider issues, we believe Google can be made to promote new books to a wider audience.

Chas Jones Sept 2005

Mindful of the controversy surrounding these issues, Google Print have sent us the following message and links:

Message from Google Print 26 September 05

Many thanks to those of you who took the time to write notes of support about Google Print. There have been some incorrect characterizations about this program in the press, and we want to be sure you have a clear understanding of the program, and of your options relating to it.

The goal of the Google Print Library Project is to create an electronic, full-text card catalogue of books (just as we've done with web pages). Our goal is to help people discover books online, not read them online; a user who finds a copyrighted books that was scanned through the Library Project can't view even a single page from this book, unless the copyright holder has given us explicit permission through the Publisher Program to show more. At most we show three examples of where the user's search term appears in the text, along with basic bibliographic info and links to online booksellers and libraries.

Here's what an in-copyright book scanned from a library looks like on Google Print:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/uploaded_images/LibraryProject_screenshot745613.JPG

It's also important to bear in mind that, just like web search, any copyright holder can ask to have their books excluded from the Library Project by following these instructions:

http://print.google.com/googleprint/publisher_library.html#options3

We realize that you may have more questions about the Library Project, and we're always happy to answer them. You can read more about our thoughts on our blog:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/google-print-and-authors-guild.html

or you can check out what other folks are saying about Google Print:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/buzz-about-google-print-and-lawsuit.html.