Google Opens Up Its EPUB Archive: Download 1 Million Books for Free
Google just announced that it will now allow users to download over 1 million public domain books in the EPUB format. Google had already made this archive available to some of its partners, including Sony and Barnes and Noble, but until today users weren't able to download these free EPUB texts from Google directly. Google will continue to make PDF versions of these books available for download as well, but users with eReader's will find the new EPUB files far more useful.
If you don't have an actual hardware eReader but still want to read these EPUB versions, you can install Stanza or a similar desktop reader to read these books.
EPUB: The One eBook Standard to Rule them All
EPUB is a free, standardized format that almost every hardware eReader or desktop software understands. Amazon's Kindle, however, cannot read EPUB texts without using some intermediary software that converts these books into a format the Kindle can understand. While there are a few competing formats, EPUB has turned into the de facto standard for eBooks. Some vendors, like Sony, wrap a digital rights management (DRM) solution around these books, but others just publish completely open, non-DRMed versions of their books. The EPUB files from Google Books will not be locked down by a DRM solution.
It is important to note, however, that these EPUB files were run through an optical character recognition (OCR) system and weren't edited afterwards. While this software has greatly improved over the last few years, there are still quite a few mistakes in most books. This post on the Google Books blog explains the conversion process in more detail. The PDF versions of these books don't suffer from this problem, as they are just copies of the actual pages. This also means, however, that these PDF files are far larger and that users can't, for example, adjust the size of the books' fonts according to the size of their screens.
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I use Sony Reader to read Google Books, they are much better than other readers. If Sony also provides an iPhone App then it will be awesome. http://ebookstore.sony.com/google-ebooks/?in_merch=Homepage_Google_1%20Million_Rt_1
"Some vendors, like Sony, wrap a digital rights management (DRM) solution around these book" - Sony sucks!
how do I search a book only in public domain books? So, if it is not in public domain, it should not list.
Remember "Full preview" is not same as "Public domain".
Sabyasachi, if you go to Google Books use advanced search option and set the date published before 1923, that is the cut-off date for public domain books.
http://books.google.com/advanced_book_search
As long you see the download link, they are public domain books.
The handshake of Google and Sony in the open books field now makes Amazon's Kindle flicker. The EPUB archive of Google and Sony are more user friendly and cheaper when compared to Kindle.
The Barnes & Noble Reader also accesses these versions. But the texts I sampled had so many OCR glitches as to be unreadable. If the goal is to actually read the book, the page image PDF is a much better option.
The EPUB archive of Google are more user friendly and cheaper.
I have download and installed stanza, it's really a good book reader.
This is great for readers, read more books.
This is great artical.
thank you very much
A welcome step nevertheless.
Thank you for this great service, It comes at the right moment when so many are strapped for cash to invest in books. What an incredible opportunity to access books that are out of print, and those that you may find may cost a fortune. One more of those extraordinary conveniences offered by Google.
This is great for readers, read more books.