Google Book Search Available to Purchase

One of the more intriguing, and potentially controversial, projects to come from the Google empire is the Google Book Search project (which is still in its beta phase), their partnership with publishers and some libraries to provide a book search engine accompanied by previews or, in the case of public domain titles, the full text. The Book Search feature has led to much speculation in the library community that Google is seeking to replace the traditional library or bookstore by digitizing books en masse. Yet the reality of the programme is quite different; the number of full‐text books available...