[ucr]

The main advantage of an electronic copy is the ability to search and highlight/copy text. If they are just scanned images, you lose this ability.

Plus, Google Books is going to do a much better job than a local book store.

[michaelt]

Modern scanners will produce a 'searchable PDF' comprised of two layers - OCRed text below, scanned image on top. So you get the search and copy ability of OCRed text, but not the loss of presentation and formatting that comes with using OCR alone. As with any OCR, you do get occasional mis-transcribed words.

Google Books doesn't let you download an entire DRM free book to your Kindle, does it?