Print Your Own Classic Books--Free

With Google's new service, according to the BBC:

The firm's book search tool will let people print classics such as Dante's Inferno or Aesop's Fables, as well as other books no longer under copyright. Until now, the service has only let people read such books on-screen.

Google's book search service stems from a wider project to put books online in a searchable format, which it is undertaking with major universities. Working with Google on the Books Library project are Oxford University, Harvard, Stanford, the University of Michigan and the University of California, as well as the New York Public Library.

"How many users will find, and then buy, books they never could have discovered any other way? Eric Schmidt, Google

Volunteers working for a project known as Gutenberg have for some years copied out-of-copyright books as text files, which can then be used for printing, reading or piping into a programme for editing.

In contrast, Google is offering the books in a "print-ready" format, as have several other - albeit much smaller and less well-known - firms.