Google scanned 25 million books from major university libraries for its Google Books project, but the deal was blocked in 2011 due to copyright issues. The digitized volumes are now only accessible by researchers and librarians. Gutenberg’s Bible was the first book ever published, and around 130 million different books have been published. A study found that regular novel readers are more likely to empathize with others.
Google is the world’s most popular search engine, but it would also like to be your destination of choice when you want to read anything other than web pages. In 2002, Google launched an ambitious project to digitize as many of the world’s books as possible, and as of 2019, it has scanned at least 25 million titles, borrowed from major university libraries. The only problem is that you probably won’t be able to read them. While Google envisioned an era of unprecedented access to reading material, many publishers and authors thought that Google Books was simply putting their work online for anyone to read, without paying anything for it. The two sides finally agreed on a book rights registry, but a federal judge blocked the deal on copyright grounds in 2011. The case was dismissed two years later, but the project hasn’t made much progress since then. The 25 million digitized volumes are now typically only accessible by researchers and librarians, who are allowed to read a fraction of the cache.
Read it and reap the rewards:
The first book ever published was Gutenberg’s Bible; it was printed by Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of printing, in 1450.
According to Google, around 130 million different books have been published.
A University at Buffalo study found that people who regularly read novels are more likely to empathize with others.
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