Finding ebooks Online Dayton Metro Library Page 8 3) www.booksshouldbefree.com Nearly all of the titles on this site point to librivox re- cordings. The plus is that the site is nicely laid out and categorized Finding eBooks Online by genre. It’s also much prettier than librivox since it offers book covers of titles and sneak peeks in text. Ebook “Search Engines”: These sites actually DON’T search for eBooks; they search for PDFs. That means though you want the book “Animal Farm,” you have to wade through hundreds of study guides, magazine articles, vide game guides, vacuum cleaner manuals...still, you might get lucky 1) mega-pdf.com 2) www.pdfgeni.com 3) search-pdf-books.com 4) www.pdfqueen.com Sites To Avoid: These sites just aren’t worth your time. The only thing they offer not offered by the sites listed above is frustration. Your guide to finding books to read 1) worldebooklibrary.com/Collections.htm 2) www.readprint.com on your computer or handheld device 3) pdfreebooks.org 4) www.classic-literature.co.uk Introduction If you (or your child) ever have to read a classic novel (or just want to for fun) and you find that the library is out of the title, don’t despair! As long as you have an internet connection, there are MANY websites out there that allow you to down-load books in different formats to read on your computer or on your portable device. There are even some that offer free audio books. We’ve collected web addresses of some of the best sites (937) 463-BOOK (2665) offering you eBook versions of traditional print books, www.daytonmetrolibrary.org mostly classics, that you can read for free or collect on your ADS—TC 03/10 hard drive creating your own virtual library! Finding ebooks Online Page 2 Page 7 Dayton Metro Library 3) www.biblegateway.com But First... If you want to read the modern Judeo-Christian Bible How to read an eBook online, you need no other website. 20 English Language versions with explanation and history There are several different ways to read these eBooks: of each plus an array of foreign language editions. Read the book in your browser window. The book’s text is Includes a search feature to search in the version of your a webpage you view like you would any other website. This choose for specific text. is probably the easiest to use, if not the easiest on the eyes. Similar site with different translations and different RTF or TXT or DOC files for downloading. You save the functionality: www.blueletterbible.org/index.cfm files to your computer and read them using Microsoft If you are looking for the oldest Judeo-Christian Bible with Word or Wordpad. Some portable devices will store and partial translations and all the “corrections” written in by display these too. the translators see: www.codex-sinaiticus.net/en/ PDF files (Portable Document File) are files you can 4) www.buddhistelibrary.org/cpg1420/index.php download or read online. They are viewable on PCs or Audio, video, image, and eText library for Buddhists of all Macs. You can also read them on some phones as well as sects. Kindle and Sony devices. Adobe Digital Editions software 300 full text books including children’s picture books and (available for free) helps you manage, download, and read chapter books as well as many titles for Buddhist families PDF and EPUB files. (Available online at the library) and books for adult study. PRC files for the Mobipocket reader. The reader is downloadable for free in versions for desktops, PDAs, most phones, and other handheld devices. (Also available Audio Books to Download online at the library). 1) librivox.org Some sites offer only one way to read, others offer many. A great collection that grows daily of free audio books re- corded by volunteers. You can search by author, title, genre, reader and more. Downloadables @ Dayton Metro Library Often there are multiple recordings of titles and quality of overdrive.daytonmetrolibrary.org reading does vary, but it’s free! Dayton Metro Library has downloadable content that you You can download the whole work or chapter by chapter. can check out just like the items you check out in your Some even have downloadable CD booklets to go with local branch. them. There are audio books that you can listen to on your com- 2) etc.usf.edu/lit2go puter or portable devices. Kind of a poor cousin to librivox, but still some good re- There are eBooks you can read on your computer or hand- cordings from this University of South Florida site. held using Adobe software or MobiPocket reader. You can download or listen on your computer to books There are even movies that you can download to your chapter by chapter (a bit annoying if the book has eighty computer. All for free—no overdue fines ever! chapters). Most include educational resources & full text of the print book too. Finding ebooks Online Page 6 Page 3 Dayton Metro Library Other Collections Other “Libraries” to Download Sites For Modern Fiction Outside of the library there are plenty of sites that offer “free” 1) www.baen.com/library/ eBooks. However, some will bombard you with ads and some are AMAZING: Sci Fi publisher Baen Books has put several just scams. THESE sites are all safe. The first five have no ads. Both books by each of its stable of authors up online for free lists that follow are in order of preference, that is, the ones we think download or online reading in a number of formats. have the most to offer are at the top of each list: If you read online, the website offers ability to change font Sites Without Ads and size of text. These are authors the likes of Niven, Norton, Bujold, 1) www.feedbooks.com Lackey, Saberhagen, and Turtledove. WOW! Thousands of public domain and new author books in 2) www.free-online-novels.com EPUB, PDF, and Mobipocket formats. Nice lady and self published author Jennifer Armstrong Site is easy to search and files are quick and easy to (you can read her novels here too) has scoured the net to download. Nicely organized with every type of book find modern fiction in many genres for you to read or available. download. 2) www.gutenberg.org There are some great authors: Rudy Rucker (Sci Fi) Andrew 30,000 free books. Through their partners and affiliates Vachss (Thrillers) There is also quite a bit of drek. Some (links page) there are 100,000 others. links send you to sites already mentioned above like Search or browse, including advanced searches. Also there Gutenberg.org. are “bookshelves” that collect similar books you can look 3) www.publicbookshelf.com through. Sci Fi and Fantasy shelves are amazing. LOTS of ads, but if you want something other than classics If you so desire you can even help them out by digitizing for free, here are some self published titles all types of other public domain books. Romances, some pretty racy. 3) www.archive.org Walking you through the content on this website could fill up twenty brochures. Books, movies, music, software, video Specialized Collections lectures…you can spend the rest of your life exploring here. 1,250,000+ books in the “American Libraries” section and 1) en.childrenslibrary.org another quarter of a million in the “Canadian Libraries.” The real deal when you are looking for children’s books. You can enter a title in the search box & you might get Includes books from around the globe for ages 3-13 lucky. Browsing is a bit harder. Nifty interface lets you read the picture books on screen For many of the books there is an awesome interface that and pick books by age level, contents or color of the cover! looks like turning pages on your screen. (Test it: search 2) www.perseus.tufts.edu “Scarecrow of Oz” & click on the fourth title down. Click Classical (ie. Greek, Roman, Arabic, Renaissance) rather on the “read online” link at the left. Here’s the 1915 than just classic. edition scanned page by page from New York Public Lib.). Offers searchable texts in dual languages and some neat You can also download the books in various formats. What tools for navigating the texts online. is available depends on what format you search. Finding ebooks Online Page 4 Page 5 Dayton Metro Library 4) onlinebooks.library.upen.edu 2) www.bartleby.com A collection of links to 35,000 free books on the web. Plenty of books for you to read on your screen in reference, Fiction, non-fiction (on every subject,) and poetry. Some are verse, fiction, and non-fiction. even illustrated. The links may direct you to other sites. Bartleby’s one drawback: the ads at the top and on the right You can browse by author or title or subject; but because side of every “page” the list is broken up into pages, you may have to click Search or Browse by author title or subject. through several pages to find your author (or title). I had to Includes the 70 volume Harvard Classics collection from click through 8 pages of E’s to get to Eliot. 1917 (with titles like Dante’s Divine Comedy & Austen’s In various formats (it depends on the site you’re directed Pride & Prejudice…some with interpretative essays). to). 3) www.fullbooks.com 5) manybooks.net Has text ads on some books but not all, so it isn’t as Browse by author, title, subject, genre, or language distracting as Bartleby.