Google ebooks

AprilHare · 08-05-2009, 04:45 AM

Quote:

Together with Google, Sony brings you access to over a million public domain books for free. Now you can search, browse, and read over a million public domain books preserved by the world's great libraries on your Sony Reader*.
*PRS-500 is not currently compatible with the books from Google.

Oh dear!
Are these Google ebooks DRM, and if not, will calibre convert them to LRF format nicely? They are all PD books, right?
Is there anything nice there that is not available elsewhere?
Sample book, anyone?

doreenjoy · 08-05-2009, 04:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AprilHare

Oh dear!
Are these Google ebooks DRM, and if not, will calibre convert them to LRF format nicely? They are all PD books, right?
Is there anything nice there that is not available elsewhere?
Sample book, anyone?

The ones I have downloaded are all EPUB and do not appear to have DRM. I've hardly made a thorough study; I've downloaded about 12 I need for research.

Sample attached.

n7tzg · 10-13-2009, 06:03 PM

My experience with the google books from the sony library is that they are so poorly formatted as to be nearly unreadable. There are many scanning errors, and the formatting and misspelling makes it such a chore that I can't enjoy reading them.

These are all older books for which the copyright has expired, and google has scanned many of them, and continues to scan more.

Rob

Patricia · 10-13-2009, 08:44 PM

The google books on the Sony site are all in EPub. They don't have DRM.
To me, they look as though someone generated an automatic text file from the original PDFs at the Google site, then sent the result to an EPub converter.

As your 500 won't read EPub, you may well be better going directly to Google Books and running a conversion yourself, AprilHare. Or just see whether the PDF is readable on your 500.

PDFRead just might work here:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21906
According to the write-up in our wiki, it is a tool for converting primarily PDF and DJVU documents for reading on eBook devices. It does this by creating an image out of each page, enhancing the image and then collating the images in a device-specific format (supports .IMP/.RB/.OEB/.LRF/.PRC/.HTML)

Superlucky · 10-13-2009, 09:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AprilHare

Is there anything nice there that is not available elsewhere?
Sample book, anyone?

I couldn't find When It Was Dark by Guy Thorne anywhere else. It was poorly formatted (i.e. it had obviously been computer-generated from the scanned book), but it was readable and free - and a pretty good read. I heard Christopher Hitchens mention it in a debate and after checking the other places (e.g. Project Gutenberg, MobileRead and Feedbooks) I found it at Google Books.

lilac_jive · 10-13-2009, 10:00 PM

It's just a partnership with Google, and they're the ones scanning the books. I haven't downloaded any of them (haven't needed to), but my coworker got turned onto it since he likes esoteric stuff. If you find one you want but it's poorly formatted on not on MR, clean it up yourself or see if someone here will (all to expand our library of course).

Like others said already, most aren't going to be pretty. But if it's the only source, hey that's something.

AnemicOak · 10-13-2009, 10:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by lilac_jive

If you find one you want but it's poorly formatted on not on MR, clean it up yourself or see if someone here will (all to expand our library of course).

Like others said already, most aren't going to be pretty. But if it's the only source, hey that's something.

Yep, and you can get the PDF of the scan from Google Books if you need to compare for formatting or missing words and stuff.

lilac_jive · 10-13-2009, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnemicOak

Yep, and you can get the PDF of the scan from Google Books if you need to compare for formatting or missing words and stuff.

Indeed!

Man, just think what will happen if Google will be allowed to post the "orphaned" books...that will be awesome. But I guess that's another thread elsewhere, heh.

Patricia · 10-13-2009, 10:09 PM

Many of the Google books have also been uploaded to The Internet Archive's texts section, and are available there in PDF, also a .txt generated automatically from the PDF (with lots of errors), and quite often in DJVU as well.

EatingPie · 11-03-2009, 09:42 PM

Well, you may be better off using the non-DRM ePUB and converting that to LRF.

ePUB is just a ZIP file containing html files for the book and contents.

You can just change the .epub extension to .zip, unzip it, and you have the .xhtml files (which are just very strict HTML). A good html converter should handle it from there.

-Pie

AprilHare · 12-01-2009, 02:42 AM

Just thinking this over: is there anything that would prevent us improving these EPUBs manually using the Google Books scans and sigil, then reposting them elsewhere, i.e. MobileRead?

Patricia · 12-01-2009, 06:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by AprilHare

Just thinking this over: is there anything that would prevent us improving these EPUBs manually using the Google Books scans and sigil, then reposting them elsewhere, i.e. MobileRead?

There's no problem doing that with public domain books, April. I've done a few myself.

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10-13-2009, 06:03 PM	#3
n7tzg Junior Member Posts: 5 Karma: 10 Join Date: Oct 2009 Device: Sony PRS-505	My experience with the google books from the sony library is that they are so poorly formatted as to be nearly unreadable. There are many scanning errors, and the formatting and misspelling makes it such a chore that I can't enjoy reading them. These are all older books for which the copyright has expired, and google has scanned many of them, and continues to scan more. Rob

10-13-2009, 08:44 PM	#4
Patricia Reader Posts: 11,504 Karma: 8720163 Join Date: May 2007 Location: South Wales, UK Device: Sony PRS-500, PRS-505, Asus EEEpc 4G	The google books on the Sony site are all in EPub. They don't have DRM. To me, they look as though someone generated an automatic text file from the original PDFs at the Google site, then sent the result to an EPub converter. As your 500 won't read EPub, you may well be better going directly to Google Books and running a conversion yourself, AprilHare. Or just see whether the PDF is readable on your 500. PDFRead just might work here: https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21906 According to the write-up in our wiki, it is a tool for converting primarily PDF and DJVU documents for reading on eBook devices. It does this by creating an image out of each page, enhancing the image and then collating the images in a device-specific format (supports .IMP/.RB/.OEB/.LRF/.PRC/.HTML)

10-13-2009, 10:00 PM	#6
lilac_jive Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,870 Karma: 27376 Join Date: Dec 2008 Location: Pennsylvania Device: PRS-505	It's just a partnership with Google, and they're the ones scanning the books. I haven't downloaded any of them (haven't needed to), but my coworker got turned onto it since he likes esoteric stuff. If you find one you want but it's poorly formatted on not on MR, clean it up yourself or see if someone here will (all to expand our library of course). Like others said already, most aren't going to be pretty. But if it's the only source, hey that's something.

10-13-2009, 10:09 PM	#9
Patricia Reader Posts: 11,504 Karma: 8720163 Join Date: May 2007 Location: South Wales, UK Device: Sony PRS-500, PRS-505, Asus EEEpc 4G	Many of the Google books have also been uploaded to The Internet Archive's texts section, and are available there in PDF, also a .txt generated automatically from the PDF (with lots of errors), and quite often in DJVU as well.

11-03-2009, 09:42 PM	#10
EatingPie Blueberry! Posts: 888 Karma: 133343 Join Date: Mar 2007 Device: Sony PRS-500 (RIP); PRS-600 (Good Riddance); PRS-505; PRS-650; PRS-350	Well, you may be better off using the non-DRM ePUB and converting that to LRF. ePUB is just a ZIP file containing html files for the book and contents. You can just change the .epub extension to .zip, unzip it, and you have the .xhtml files (which are just very strict HTML). A good html converter should handle it from there. -Pie

12-01-2009, 02:42 AM	#11
AprilHare Wizard Posts: 2,981 Karma: 11862367 Join Date: Apr 2008 Device: Sony Reader PRS-T2	Just thinking this over: is there anything that would prevent us improving these EPUBs manually using the Google Books scans and sigil, then reposting them elsewhere, i.e. MobileRead?

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