Bill Evjen's Blog

Is Google scanning the full text of the book? When I looked at their site and at a few books all I got was the cover and beginning pages of the book. There were links present on the page to purchase the book online.

What they do is they scan the full book and you can search for specific words in a book. Then you can click on a link to get directed to the page that contains that word and you can scroll through a series of pages that are contained in the book, but not the entire book at once.

The problem is (at least for publishers and authors) is that let's say there is someone trying to figure out how to use the new XmlDataSource control and they enter that word into Google Print and get directed to my book to a specific page where this is discussed. The reader on Google can then scroll through the couple of pages reading up on this control and then they are done. Granted, they didn't scroll through the entire book, but they are able to get what they need from a publication without needing to purchase this publication.

I do like people using my books to learn and to help them do their jobs, but at the same time - it takes me 4-5 months to write a book ... it is a ALOT of work and I would hope that people would purchase a title I have written instead of pulling what they need from it from Google for free. You don't get paid much as an author, but it sure is nice to get a bit of a reward for all the hard work.

After reading the complaint filed with the courts by Publishers, reading Eric Schmidt’s Google’s...

"The reader on Google can then scroll through the couple of pages reading up on this control and then they are done."

And what is the difference between doing this and going into a bookshop and doing the same? In fact, in a bookshop, you can read much more of the book than google are offering, more easily.

but don't we do this in a library???

dorothy