Google offers its digital books for printing

       Google is giving 2 million books in its digital library a chance to be reincarnated as paperbacks.
       As part of a deal announced yesterday,Google is opening up part of its index to the maker of a high-speed publishing machine that can manufacture a paperback-bound book of about 300 pages in under 5 minutes. The new service is an acknowledgment by the internet search leader that not everyone wants their books served up on a computer or an electronic reader like those made by Amazon.com and Sony.
       The "Espresso Book Machine" has been around for several years, but it figures to become a hotter commodity now that it has access to so many books scanned from some of the world's largest libraries. And On Demand Books, the Espresso's maker, potentially could get access to even more hard-to-find books if Google wins court approval of a classaction settlement giving it the right to sell out-of-print books.
       "This is a seminal event for us," said Dane Neller, On Demand Books' chief executive, as he oversaw a demonstration of the Espresso Book Machine on Wednesday at Google's Mountain View,California, headquarters.
       In the background, some of the books that Google spent the past five years scanning into a digital format were returning to their paper origins.
       "It's like things are coming full circle,"Google spokeswoman Jennie Johnson said."This will allow people to pick up the physical copy of a book even if there may be just one or two other copies in some library, or maybe it's not even available at all." On Demand's printing machines already are in more than a dozen locations in the United States,Canada, Australia, England and Egypt,mostly at campus book stores, libraries and small retailers. The Harvard Book Store will be among the first equipped with an instant-publishing machine to have access to Google's digital library.
       The books published by The Espresso Machine will have a recommended sales price of US$8(270 baht) per copy,although the final decision will be left to each retailer. New York-based On Demand Books will get a $1 of each sale with another $1 going to Google, which says it will donate its commission to charities and other nonprofit causes.
       The high-speed publishing machine itself sells for about $100,000, although On Demand Books is willing to lease the equipment to retailers instead.
       For starters, Google is only allowing The Espresso Machine publish from the section of its digital library that consists of 2 million books no longer protected by copyright.
       These "public domain" books were published before 1923- an era that includes classics like Moby Dick and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as well as very obscure titles. The paperbacks churned out in Wednesday's demonstration of the Espresso included Lathe Work For Beginners
       Lathe Dame Curtsey's Book
       MOf Candy Making , and Memoirs Of A Cavalier , a Daniel Defoe novel that never caught on quite like his most famous work,Robinson Crusoe .Millions more titles could be added to On Demand's virtual inventory if Google gets federal court approval of a classaction settlement that would grant it the right to sell copyrighted books no longer being published. Google estimates it already has made digital copies of about 6 million out-of-print books.
       The settlement terms includes a provision that could authorise republishing the books with a machine like the Espresso. Some of Google's rivals and a long list of other critics are hoping to block the settlement, mainly because they believe it will give Google a monopoly on the digital rights to out-of-print books and make it too easy to track people's reading preferences.
       The US Justice Department is investigating the monopoly allegations and is scheduled to share some of its preliminary thoughts with District Judge Denny Chin in a brief due today.
       Mr Neller is thrilled just to have the right to publish selections fromGoogle's digital library of public domain books.
       He thinks it could help him reach his ambition to turn the Espresso machine into publishing's equivalent of an ATM.
       "It's more efficient for everyone and readers are the biggest beneficiaries,"Mr Neller said.