I agree about the historic value of Ospreys, but they are a good reference / but good as starting point for amateur historians.
What I most value is their nice colour plates.
they are useful for painting wargames figures.
Thanks for that. Ospreys are fairly rare in our Libraries unless it is someone personal collection.
You can try on the net. Even Osprey has some free pages in their website.
But, there are lots of pages where you can find free dowloads of virtually everything! There are lots of ospreys and other science and history books available in those site like rapidshare etc.