Google makes the full text of public domain books available in Google Print.

Google Print is Google’s ambitious project of scanning books and including their content in search results.

So far Google has announced that it will respect copyright laws and conventions and only make snippets of text available from copyright protected books.

However, books that are older than 70 years are no longer protected by international copyright laws, and can be reproduced by anyone, anywhere.

Hence Google has now included a large number of public domain books in Google Print.

Google says that the collection includes works such as U.S. Civil War history books, government documents, the writings of Henry James and other materials.

In the words of the Google blog:

“Every page of these books is fully available online, so you can study, for instance, an illustrated version of Henry James’ Daisy Miller (the opening illustration on page one is pictured here) from Harvard’s Henry James collection, or read how Private Joseph Taylor got his medal of honor in style, in The Seventh Regiment Rhode Island Volunteers in the Civil War, 1862-1865, from the University of Michigan.â€?

Mary Sue Coleman, President of the University of Michigan says:

“As educators we are inspired by the possibility of sharing these important works with people around the globe. Think of the doors it will open for students; geographical distance will no longer hamper research. Anyone with an Internet connection can search the text of and read the compelling narratives, historical accounts and classic works offered today, and in doing so access a world of ideas, knowledge and discovery.”

Not all academics are equally enthusiastic. As Pandia reported earlier this year the American Authors Guild has sued Google for copyright infringement, arguing that “the $90 billion search engine and advertising juggernaut is engaging in massive copyright infringement at the expense of the rights of individual writers.�

As regards the inclusion of these particular texts, however, we suspect that they have no objection.

Amazon to distribute digital books

It should also be mentioned that online book-and-everything store Amazon will now expand its Search Inside the Book service to allow downloading of pages, chapters and even complete books.

These are not free, however. You will have to purchase online access to this “Amazon Pages� program, or – alternatively – join the “Amazon Upgrade� which will give you a digital copy together with old-fashioned paper copies sent by snail mail.

Gary Price has a useful survey of online digital books at Search Engine Watch