Reading Online Books With Google Book Search

With Google Book Search, readers who are focused on research or who are looking for serious reading materials may be pleasantly thrilled that this facility enables one to read relevant pages of a book (some only with limited previews). For example, I typed the word "education" into Google Book Search and saw that there were more than 12 million pages worth of reading materials! This is wonderful for college students who may need to reference academic resources to support their essays.

I read online from TIMESONLINE : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2335906,00.html the article called "Online Books are coming free, forgetting the extras". The paragraph that caught my eyes was paragraph 8 which stated, " [...] the market is in its infancy and nobody has managed to come up with a satisfactory electronic book-reader" (Sabbagh & Malvern, 2006. para. 8). There are currently a few ebook readers on the market of various sizes and prices. I own a Wi-Fi enabled Cybook which can open unencrypted PDF, and reading ebooks online is a breeze. Many people own notebook or desktop computers (some with broadband connections) which will do just fine for downloading files .

When I accessed this book called "Marion De Lorme: drame By Victor Hugo" from my notebook, I saw that I could choose to read it online or download the entire book in PDF format which is only 2.4MB. It was not something cumbersome - in fact I see it as a wonderful initiative from Google in promoting reading. I never read the Classics because I thought my time is better spent reading the non-fictions ... but since all these classics are now available on a click of the screen, I began to feel interested! After my Cybook's battery is fully charged, I'll try accessing these books to see if I can read them as well as I did on my notebook.

Putting commercial thoughts aside, being able to access books or pages of text online is good for promoting reading.

Reference:
Sabbagh, D., Malvern, J. (2006). Online Books Are Coming Free, Forgetting the Extras. Retrieved on 31/8/2006 from TimesOnline on the World Wide Web at: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2335906,00.html , para. 8.