This looks like it will be an nice tool for Internet users:
The libraries of five of the world’s most important academic institutions are to be digitised by Google.
Scanned pages from books in the public domain will then be made available for search and reading online.
The full libraries of Michigan and Stanford universities, as well as archives at Harvard, Oxford and the New York Public Library are included.
Online pages from scanned books will not have adverts but will have links to online store Amazon, Google said.
They say no advertising now, but I bet they figure out some creative ways to work some embedded advertising links in there.
At any rate, this will be one more excuse not to go to a brick and mortar library. Incidentally, I went to the local public library a couple weeks ago. It had been so long since I’d checked out a book there that my card was invalid. That’s pretty bad.