People look for books in libraries.
For the other questions, we've prepared a short outline that highlights the best sources we know for finding information about books using the Internet. Most books are not available for free over the Internet, if they are even available in digital form, due to copyright restrictions. The books in the IPL's Online Texts Collection are out of copyright and are, thus, freely available. If your library has an online catalog that's accessible from the Internet, you can search it from wherever you are. If you search through and can't find your library, try visiting or calling the reference desk there to ask about the book you're interested in.