My bibliographer for cinema just sent this out. I thought the list might like to read it, too. Unfortunately, they're being pretty conservative in defining public domain. I haven't played with this much, but I did notice that the oft-taught Photoplay by Munsterberg is available. I'll bet there's plenty more. Markus Nornes University of Michigan +++++++++++++++++++ From: [log in to unmask] Subject: MBooks and Google Book Search Date: August 31, 2006 6:55:26 PM GMT-04:00 To: [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask], [log in to unmask] Dear SAC Faculty and Graduate Students, I wanted to share some exciting news with you concerning the first phase of the digitization of the UM University Library's print collection by Google. As of August 31, the University Library version of materials scanned so far through our partnership with Google, which we're calling "MBooks", has been released to the public. Both the MBooks and Google versions are directly accessible from the records found in our Mirlyn catalog for particular books and journals. As you may know, works clearly in the public domain are fully accessible, while works still under copyright, or with rights remaining to be determined, are viewable either as snippets (in Google, based on the first 3 occurrences of search terms in the book), or as a complete index to all occurrences of search terms (in MBooks). The initial definition of "public domain" has been conservative, and includes materials published before 1923 (US) or before 1909 (other countries). Over time, we can expect restrictions on access to many more materials to be lifted. The two different interfaces do differ in a variety of other ways. Printing out-of-copyright works from MBooks, for example, must currently be done one page at a time (works best when you switch to the pdf view), while Google is making entire out-of-copyright works available for printing or download. The MBooks version is particularly helpful when looking for a known item, or when trying to locate a particular journal volume. I am not sure how many volumes are available in this initial MBooks release, but it is very large (more than 50,000 volumes), and growing rapidly. However, because the UM Library did not begin to make screen studies a focus of our collection until the mid-20th century, you may not find many fully viewable, out-of-copyright works directly related to screen studies in MBooks. But you may find tangentially related works, such as the 1902 and 1903 volumes of the journal "The Camera": http://mdp.lib.umich.edu/cgi/pt? id=39015023576955;page=root;seq=5;view=image;size=100 http:// mdp.lib.umich.edu/cgi/pt? id=39015023576948;page=root;seq=9;view=image;size=100 Fortunately, ours is not the only library participating in Google's Library Project--so in Google Book Search, in addition to all the books scanned by Google here at UM, you can find additional fully viewable, out-of-copyright works which *are* directly related to screen studies that Google has scanned at Harvard, Stanford, etc. For example: "The Theatre of Science: A Volume of Progress and Achievement in the Motion Picture Industry" by Robert Grau (1914) http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC02779265 "How Motion Pictures are Made" by Homer Croy (1918) http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC01885138 Both MBooks and Google Book Search provide links on each page to send in comments. I encourage you to help us improve our electronic holdings by making use of the comment links. You can of course share any thoughts or suggestions with me, as well. --Scott Dennis (Selector for Film and Video Studies/Screen Arts and Cultures, Hatcher Graduate Library) --------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Dennis Humanities Librarian and Coordinator, Core Electronic Resources 209 Hatcher Graduate Library University of Michigan Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1205 Email: [log in to unmask] Phone: (734) 647-6484 Fax: (734) 764-0259 Web: http://www.lib.umich.edu/grad/guide/selector.php?id=1 --------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- Screen-L is sponsored by the Telecommunication & Film Dept., the University of Alabama: http://www.tcf.ua.edu