Google offers free downloads of classics

CALIFORNIA: Discovering Dante, Newton and Hugo just became a little easier. Readers can find new, and free, downloadable versions of some of the classic books on Google Book Search (http://books.google.com).

Google is expanding access to books that are out of copyright and have become public domain material. Users can search and read these books on Google Book Search, but now they can also download and print them.

"Public domain books include both well-known classics and less well-known books on every conceivable subject," according to Sidney Verba, director of the Harvard University Library, a partner in the Google Books Library Project.

"Since people can search the full text of these books, they can find previously buried information about historical events or people, places of interest and matters cultural or scientific. What has been tucked away in large research library collections and available only to a few, can now be discovered and read by people everywhere."

To find books to download, readers can select the "Full view" button when searching on Google Book Search, and then click on the "Download" button shown on public domain books. They can then download a PDF file to their computers to read when they are offline, save for later, or print a paper version.

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