Google and Microsoft books searching

The Classics in Contemporary Culture blog has put together lists of Google Books on Greek and Latin literature.

(via rogueclassicism)

I've been annotating the Historia Numorum bibliography with Google Books entries, for much the same reasons. Google Books is hard to search.

Google books now has competition from Microsoft. TeleRead reported last week that Microsoft's engine can already be searched using http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=&scope=books. It works. I didn't find much there, although the British Library is supposed to be onboard.

Microsoft's search led me to Berlin banker to California numismatist, 1887-1987: oral history transcript / 1983-1987, a 326 page interview with dealer Edward Gans, founder of Numismatic Fine Arts. (Text starts about page 11).

The copyright page on the Gans manuscript clearly says the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley owns the rights. Written permission is needed for quoting and publishing. Presumably the archive.org and/or Microsoft obtained these rights? I know of no way to check. It's an interesting historical document. Probably a copy should be at the ANS library, as Gans mentions the ANS and Newell a lot. Would it be breaking the law to print a copy for the ANS library?