Google / Bodleian Library: freely available public domain content

Google has announced the completion of their partnership with the Bodleian Library. “The bulk of the available public domain content” from the Bodleian Library is now freely available via Google Book Search, part of the five year book-scanning deal between Google and the Bodleian. Most of the books are from the 19th century. When found, the Bodleian books also offer downloadable PDF versions, meaning printed copies can be made via print-on-demand services such as Lulu.
As yet, the online Bodleian pre-1920 Catalogue does not link to Google Book Search results. So users of the Catalogue will have to open a new browser window and copy and paste to see if a book is on Google Book Search. What exact percentage of the pre-1920 Catalogue is actually available on Google is rather hazy, though. The original goal was to (non-destructively) scan one million books from the Bodleian. But the recent official Google blog post talks rather vaguely of somewhat less than that — “many hundreds of thousands”. Google Book Search is currently said to hold records for about 7 million books, with about 2.5 million of those offering viewable pages.