Google Books, the search engine giant’s book search tool, contains more than books. Google is also in the process of scanning new and old magazines to be included in the database.

Google (NSDQ:GOOG) has now added a separate entry gateway for magazine search. At the top you will find a search box that lets you limit your search to the content of magazines.

Below is a grid featuring the covers of various magazines. Click on one of them and you get access to a scanned copy of that particular issue.

And no, you will still have to buy the latest issue in the shop. The magazines presented here are at least one year old. Furthermore, the number of magazines included is limited and they are all American. This means that this service is more like a case study showing the future potential of Google’s magazine search than a real magazine repository.

Amazon is already selling digital copies of newspapers through its Kindle e-reader. Our guess is that Google is preparing Google Books for an era where they will sell copies of magazines directly over the Web.

Jeffrey Peng, the software engineer that designed the page, tells more about this over at The Inside Google Books blog.