Thursday, September 02, 2010

"How are book previews limited?"


Well, I'll tell ya. What they say here is this:

Many of the books you can preview on Google Books are still in copyright, and are displayed with the permission of publishers and authors. You can browse these "limited preview" titles just as you would in a bookstore, but you won't be able to see more pages than the copyright holder has made available.


But wait. "Just as I would in a bookstore?" That's actually not true. I could read the whole damned book in the bookstore if I wanted.

[photo credit: Valeriana Solaris]

2 comments:

Unknown said...

There's nothing quite like being condescended to by marketing folks. It just gives me such a warm and fuzzy feeling!

Anonymous said...

Well, if it makes you feel any better, it actually is possible to print out google books pages, if you have a mac. Just save as a web archive, which will include images for the current page, as well as the immediately preceding and succeeding page. These can be printed out. Then if you can find the book in a library with a copy machine, you're all set.

Stinginess finds a way.