No Shelf Required

With the wave of technology, there are more and more resources becoming available for online readers. Some have the annoying ad popups and others have you watch a brief ad that helps to keep the website open but they are free to the public with one being free to only Arkansans.

Below are some easy to use sites that are free to the public. Click on the pictures to go to the links.

Project Gutenberg is an online library of free eBooks.

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related content today. There is a searchable option as well as a feed of the most recently added eBooks. Most books are older and the US copyright has expired. Volunteers work to digitize the books and have grown a collection of over 60,000 works.

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World Book is known for their encyclopedias and research guides. As a resident of Arkansas, you also have access to their eBooks. They have 20 classical literature eBooks as well as hundreds of nonfiction books that World Book holds the copyright. You must make sure that your location services are on. This ensures that the user is from Arkansas. The site is broken down into categorical genres like Cultures of the World, Environment, Health and Human Body, etc.

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Bookshare is an initiative started to help US students who have dyslexia, blindness, cerebral palsy, and other reading barriers. They have over 9,000 free books. However, if you create an account, you would have access to the over 920,000 books that they have available. It is free to US students and schools and allows readers with disabilities to have access to quality books that they can change to audio, audio + highlighted text, braille, large font, and other formats.

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Open Library has the goal of making all books available in eformat so that people of all economic backgrounds can access them. Users can create reading lists of books that they hope to read as well as track what books that they have read in this program. Some books only have the bibliographic information while others can be borrowed for 14 days with a free account. Users can also be put on a waiting list and notified when a book is returned so that it can be checked out. All book types from all grade levels are available.

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As you can see, there are a lot of ebooks available if you know where to look. Ebooks provide a way to get quality literature without worrying about overdue fees, library hours, or your pocketbook.