Open Books from Google

New from the Google Books Blog:

Try doing a search for [Ham­let] on Google Books. The first few results you’ll get are “Full View” books — which means you can read the full text. And, because the book is in the pub­lic domain, you can also down­load a copy of Ham­let in PDF form.

Start­ing today, you’ll be able to down­load these and over one mil­lion pub­lic domain books from Google Books in an addi­tion­al for­mat. We’re excit­ed to now offer down­loads in EPUB for­mat, a free and open indus­try stan­dard for elec­tron­ic books. It’s sup­port­ed by a wide vari­ety of appli­ca­tions, so once you down­load a book, you’ll be able to read it on any device or through any read­ing appli­ca­tion that sup­ports the for­mat. That means that peo­ple will be able to access pub­lic domain works that we’ve dig­i­tized from libraries around the world in more ways, includ­ing some that haven’t even been built or imag­ined yet.

The post con­tin­ues here.