To Peter Suber, because there are no comments on his blog, for what I can tell. From this post:
Nor does the barrier-free access seem to have begun yet. Here’s a public-domain 1897 edition of MacBeth scanned from Harvard’s library. I can print it one page at a time, but I can’t find a way to print or download the full text.
Maybe things have changed since his post, but I found this copy of Macbeth with a full PDF download on the right side. Not only that, but more interesting are the various commentaries on the play, histories of Scotland and the Anglo-Saxons and other works from the 18th and 19th century. Nothing from the 20th, even outside copyright (isn’t it pre-1923?). Here is a search for “Macbeth” only in those books with full text available.
As I future librarian I hold reservations about giving one company so much power, but just the possibility of reading some textual commentary from the 19th Century raises more than a few good avenues for research off the top of my head and gives me academic goosebumps.
“academic goosebumps”? =)
it’s blogday today! and i recommended your blog on mine. i hope to meet you one of these days.
Hey I saw that, thanks for the mention.
I am sure we will meet, we will for sure have a class together seeing we are starting at the same time. What are your interests?
Interesting thoughts on Google and Google Books. I have been confused for awhile as to the difference between Google Scholar and Google Books, but I just read the following Berkeley Guide and it really gives me a clearer idea, so am including a link for your reference too.
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/TeachingLib/Guides/Internet/Googling_Max-Exercises.pdf
~k, have you looked at the Open Content Alliance? U of T is participating, and the books will be only those which are in the public domain.