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Google is now offering downloads of public domain books in Google Books in the EPUB format, which is an open and free industry standard for electronic books. This format is supported by a wide variety of different applications, so it should be easy for many people to access literature this way.

Users can download the public domain books by simply clicking the "download" button in the Google Books Toolbar, which provides a drop-down menu to choose the file format.

"We founded Google Books on the premise that anyone, anywhere, anytime should have the tools to explore the great works of history and culture," says Product Manager Brandon Badger. "We began digitizing these books because we thought it was important for people to be able to find and read them, and we want them to be able to do so anywhere — not just when they happen to be at a computer. This feature takes us one step closer towards realizing that goal by helping support open standards that enable people to access these books in more places, on more devices and through more applications."

In the past, Google has offered downloads in the PDF format, but some devices don't have screens that can render image-based PDF versions of books well. This should help with that problem.

The EPUB format allows text to automatically fit smaller screens, so they can be viewed properly on phones, netbooks, and e-ink readers. Google will still continue to offer downloads in the PDF format as well.