eLearning Service

Google’s Public Policy Blog is attempting to answer questions about the Google Book Search settlement and what it means for readers as it expands access to books in the U.S.

Authors and publishers with questions should visit the settlement Notice website.

Here’s some basics of the settlement:

• When you find the book you’re searching for, you’ll be able to preview 20% of the book over the Internet from anywhere in the U.S. If you want to look at the whole thing, you’ll be able to go down to your public library where there will be a computer station with access to the whole book for free. And if you don’t want to leave home or want a copy for yourself, you’ll be able to purchase access to an electronic copy of the book. As always, if the book is old enough to be in the public domain, you’ll be able to download the whole book for free.
• If you’re at a university, in addition to your libraries’ free access points, your school can obtain an institutional subscription that gives you access to most books that we’ve scanned. And scholars and students who don’t keep the same study hours as the library will be able to look at any book, anywhere, any time.
• If you are vision impaired, the settlement will open a world of books to which you’ve never had access. Visually impaired people will be able to search for books through the Google Books interface and purchase, borrow, or read at a public library any of the books that are available to the general public in a format that is accessible to the vision impaired.
• If you want to read in foreign languages, you will have access to tens of thousands of more books than you have today. Books in Spanish add up to almost 10% of the books already scanned. If you account for the difference in numbers between books in Spanish and English, the usage per book in Spanish is more than three times what it is for books in English.

“The settlement won’t just expand access to out-of-print books, either.  Because authors and publishers will have the ability to let users preview and purchase their in-print books through Google Book Search, readers will have even more options for accessing in-print books than they have today.”