Google lets you custom-print millions of books

[Gord Lacey]

I was just reading this article on CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/09/18/g...oks/index.html - originally from Wired) about Google teaming up with On Demand Books to allow people to print custom books form more than 2 million books that are in the public domain. As I'm reading the article which talks about the $100,000 machine that prints these books, I started to wonder where this could be done, the cost, and what interesting books could be printed, when I came across this:

Other current retailers include the University of Michigan Shapiro Library Building in Ann Arbor; the Blackwell Bookshop in London; the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Alexandria, Egypt; the University of Alberta Bookstore in Edmonton, Canada; and Angus & Robertson Bookstore in Melbourne, Australia. The company hopes to sell 60 more printers in the next year, bringing the number of machines globally to about 90.

So, that means we have one of 30 machines in the world right here at the U of A. Pretty cool! Now I want to see what can be printed...

Gord

[Jimbo]

Cool.

I wonder what the retail cost is going to be on the public domain books?

I hope we get Kindle here, soon.

Some revolutionary changes in the book industry.

[Gord Lacey]

I did some more research, and the U of A has apparently had this for a couple of years. They charge $0.07/page, and have various fees for setup:

http://www.bookstore.ualberta.ca/ind.../ESPRESSOBOOKS

Gord