A couple of years ago, struggling to keep up with university assessment deadlines, I discovered Google Books. I discovered Google Books because the one copy of the book that I, and 150 other students studying nationalism in Europe, needed to finish our essays by the end of the week had been borrowed by one of those mystically organised students months earlier before the beginning of the course. I discovered Google Books, when, turning in desperation to the National Library’s holdings, I found that the copies of the book held at the NLA were already reserved.