Following in the steps of Google, Microsoft has launched a Beta version of its non-copyright book search. Live Book Search doesn’t look like much, and when visiting the site there are no immediate indications that there is anything different here than the regular live search, but performing a search will reveal book results, and a change in the title tag to “Live Search Books: ”

The new Live Book Search will include more than 25 million pages from the British Library which had received funding from Microsoft to transfer the out of copyright material into digital format. It will also include collections scanned from the University of California as well as the University of Toronto.

Sometime next year these book search results will be integrated into the regular windows live search results after the beta period has ended. Book search will also be integrated as a category in the main Live search engine.