Looking for resources to read eBooks during this lock down period? Here are some great open libraries you can find online for free books to read.
Reading is definitely one of the greatest pleasures of life. Online libraries are currently attracting a lot of eyes, especially with most of the countries under lock down because of a massive outbreak of a deadly virus, which is affecting more and more people with each passing day. Ever wondered how these online libraries work? It is pretty simple and not so different from traditional libraries. These online libraries have a collection of books and reading materials from different publications in electronic formats, which can be accessed easily. Most of these open online libraries require you to sign up, look for the desired book or source or material and lets you download it or read it online.
To help you curb your boredom and get access to books from the comforts of your home, during this lock down period, we have a list of our top picks for online libraries that you can access with a simple click.
Project Gutenburg
A volunteer effort to preserve and archive important cultural works and digitize them for being available online, Project Gutenburg works for encouraging the preservation, creation and also, distribution of eBooks on an online platform. Majority of the sources that you will find here in the collection are complete texts from public domain books. Now offering more than 59,000 eBooks online for free, Project Gutenburg can be used and accessed from any of your devices.
Questia
Questia is a great source of research and paper writing projects which is available online. It has helped many students with citation from high standard scholarly articles and research paper to use for their own research. You can find a wide of range of papers on subjects related to humanities and social sciences and it provides you with the complete sources and resources you need to fulfill your coursework or project.
Read Print
Read Print is another online open library which provides thousands of eBooks archives for reading enthusiasts, students, teachers and everyone else. It enables the readers and users to choose from a collection of over 8000 books and also lets the readers make their own bookshelves with their personal ratings and reviews and also form reading groups with people having interests similar to theirs. It was also on the list of TIME Magazine’s 50 best websites in the year 2010.
Open Library
Open Library is an online project that intends to create a web page for every book that was ever published, giving the readers access to several public domains and many out of print books. Their main aim is to let people have access to all the published works of people available to anyone and everyone around the world. It is an initiative by Internet Archive, a non profit organization, which is also #7 on our list of top open libraries online.
Classic Reader
From Shakespeare to Austen and Dickens to Edgar Allen Poe, Classic Reader online library offers you with a wide range of thousands of classics of literature including poems, plays, dramas and short stories. You can not only find and read your favourite classics and short stories, but also you can add your own annotations to the books available online on classicreader.com.
The Literature Network
The Literature Network, as the name suggests, provides students as well as other reading enthusiasts with a range of 3500 literature books available online. To start finding the piece of literature you want, you can begin to search through the author index. They also have a large collection of short stories at your disposal, a quiz system featuring more than 300 quizzes and database of quotes and quotations which has about 9000 quote available. You can also join Literature forums and ask questions, which can be answered by anyone from the thousands of members who are part of this network.
Internet Archive
Internet Archive is a non profit organization, which is available for free of cost and provides the readers and users with an extensive range of much more beyond just books. You can find music, movies, sources, websites, software and much more. It provides people with access to a massive database of free information that is available online by catering to millions of people every day and is also considered to be one of the top 300 websites around the world.
The Online Books Page
The Online Books Page, as the name, is a website that gives the readers access to a variety of books that are available to be read freely, on the internet. It focuses on developing eBooks and online reading resources for the benefit of all people. Their long list of available resources and books is completely free and can be used for non commercial purposes. It has a collection of over 2 million sources and works, available to the readers in various media formats.
Classic Bookshelf
With a simple web page format and a reading app, Classic Bookshelf brings to you a collection of hundreds of classics and timeless wonders of literature across decades, available online with easy access. You can also take reference from its ratings and reviews to find the most popular books at regular intervals.
Chest of Books
The Chest of Books website has put in great effort in converting texts into eBooks and carefully proofreading and scanning them for the benefit and pleasure of the readers and the website users. It presents you with a variety of online books available from different fields or topics such as Art, Finance, Health, Business and many more.
We hope that this list of our top picks come handy to all reading enthusiasts and help their life in this lock down a little better. Do let us know if we missed out any online libraries from the list, or if you would like to review any of these that you may have used before!