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Ask HN: Google Books Preview. How to get full preview?

1 points by hacjjjjjjjj ↗ HN
Google says: --- 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. ---- So, what if I want to get the full digital copy of these books, what should I do ? Google of course has them. Should I buy somewhere or what ? Then where to buy ? looking at current situation there is no way one can access this. Some books are like so old but still in copyright, out-of-print and only available in Google BOoks. What to do now ?

5 comments

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moontear
I don't know if this qualifies as a HN question... ;-)

Could you provide some links where a book i ONLY available on Google Books? On the left side of the books you usually have all the sellers of the book "Get this book". Some old books which are out of copyright you can get via different sources (e.g. Project Gutenberg)

hacjjjjjjjj
Like this one, I am learning for typography it is available only in Google Books no other online or physical store. http://books.google.com/books?num=13&id=zpfgAAAAMAAJ&...
michael_dorfman
Well, somebody on Flickr has it: http://www.flickr.com/photos/typeoff/3867449610/

If it is as rare as it appears to be, I suppose I'd put photos of my copy on Flickr, too.

Seriously, though: this looks like an ideal candidate for "Inter-Library Loan". Go to your nearest library, and ask them to get it for you from one of the (few, large) libraries that has it.

hacjjjjjjjj
This book is only available in the central libary of India which don't have any policy of inter-library loan. So, if google has scanned it why not give it to download ?
michael_dorfman
Presumably because the copyright holders are not willing to allow them to do so. Google doesn't decide these things on their own, of course.

Now, why wouldn't the original copyright holder waive the rights? I'm guessing that, since the title seems to have been published by a local government, for purely bureaucratic reasons rather than ones of ideology.

Are there really no other libraries that have it? I'd be shocked if it's not in the Library of Congress, the British Library, or Widener.