Regardless of the still outstanding legal issues raised by publishers protecting their existing business models, Google is forging ahead quickly in making its Book Search initiative more and more useful. As reported by Bloomberg, based on an email exchange with Google, they have just added the possibility to download full copies of books that are out of copyright in PDF format.
This feature will be great for students, researchers, book lovers worldwide: you can now read you favorite classical authors in an antique print, conveniently onscreen. I don’t mean this ironically: more and more people are accustomed to reading stuff off the computer screen. With the release this winter of screens based on e-Ink by Sony, Philips, and others, the quality and convenience of this type of reading will further multiply.