How to find downloadable books in Google Books

All I wanted was a full-view version of Audubon’s masterpiece, The Birds of America…

A page from Audubon’s “Birds of America”

… but I was having a hard time findingi it. But with a little help from my friends on the Books team, I learned how to do this.

1. Do your search and limit the returns to “Full View”

2. Then, open that book (Volume 1) to see this:

3. Clear the search (you’ll see why in the next step). This will then show you the summary page of this book:

4. To find the other volumes of Birds of America, click on the “Other editions” button in the center of the UI:

5. Click on “More” — This will then show you all of the “Other editions” of this book, which will include the option to filter by “downloadable”!

6. Once you click on “Download available,” it will show you all of the PDF versions of the books, including nearly all of the other volumes:

Interestingly, this list now shows you full scans of Birds of America that do not show up in “full view,” but which are downloadable (and therefore in full view… go figure).

But I’ll tell you now–Volume 5 doesn’t show up when you do this search. (It doesn’t seem to have ever been scanned.) But the OTHER 7 volumes do show up! And if you’re an amateur field biologist, this is a treasure trove for you.

Search on!

Post Script:

If you like this, try the following amazing books, which I leave as suggestions for the interested SRS reader to find:

On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres. (aka De revolutionibus orbium caelestium) Nicolaus Copernicus.