Where can I find novels and other books online?
Introduction
As the availability of eBooks has skyrocketed since its conception in 1971, the Internet has revolutionized ways people can purchase and view books. There now exist many ways to find books and novels online including some free options if the work has entered the public domain.
What is the public domain?
The public domain describes when a creative of scientific work has its intellectual property rights expire and becomes available for use member of society. In the case of books, copyrights generally expire a number of years after the death of the author. When those rights expire, you may be able to find a version of it online that can be downloaded to be read on other formats or read directly off a computer.
What is Google Libraries?
Google Libraries is a project that seeks to improve access of the world’s books to the average internet user. It scans many published works and converts it to a readable and searchable format. For works with existing copyrights, Google Libraries reveals portions of texts as previews or “snippets” so that users may indentify out of print works that may be useful to them. Most importantly, books that enter the public domain may be downloaded for free from this service into an eBook format. Books that have not entered public domain may also be downloaded if the author or publisher has allowed for the free digital distribution of his or her work.
What are some other resources for online books and novels?
The University of Pennsylvania maintains an online books library that aggregates the free content of eBook publishers and transcribers across the Internet. The largest contributor of eBooks to this library is the Gutenberg Project that conceived of the first eBook in 1971 – the US Declaration of Independence, with the dream of allowing personal digital libraries catered to individual interests. One may either search or browse the library and the entries will link to another site that hosts the book online.
Additionally, there is the website openlibrary.org that hosts over one million free eBooks. Openlibrary.org is a project hosted by the Internet Achieve, a non-profit that documents important digital data and artifacts. Unlike other collections, it is open source so any one may edit the catalogue, add books or correct mistakes. Free online books are hosted the website and accessed through a readers. The reader supports scrolling and zoom functions for easy user accessibility. In addition to access to free eBooks, there is also a “lending library” where a user can “borrow” an eBook for two weeks at a time.
Links –
https://www.google.com/googlebooks/library.html
https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
https://www.archive.org/
https://openlibrary.org/
Where can I find cheap books?
Introduction
Just as the internet has increased the flow of information for users, it has also revolutionized the way people shop for books. This change is significant enough to imperil the traditional business of booksellers and force them to adapt to changing market conditions.
Who are the reliable sellers for books?
Although there are many sellers offering cheap books, not every vendor is a reputable dealer. It is of the buyer’s interest to use a reputable seller, such as Amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com that will guarantee the book you buy will be at the condition promised and delivered in a timely manner.
What are some drawbacks of buying cheap books online?
When buying cheap books at below market prices, especially used books, there runs the risk that the seller has exaggerated the extent of damage to the book in order to sell it. Many sellers will include return addresses to return items that the customer is dissatisfied with. Bear in mind that not all sellers are reputable and may refuse refunds.
An additional drawback is the cost of shipping books from the seller to the consumer. Often, the price of shipping to applied to the cost of the book to defer some of the costs to the seller. This may lead to misleading pricing. Additionally, some websites will not display the cost of shipping, tricking the consumer into believing that a good deal is in fact a mediocre deal. Most reputable sellers will give the buyer an option to sort the cost of the book by price and shipping to express the actual cost to the buyer. Additionally, many sellers offer periods of free shipping promotions. Amazon.com Prime Membership for example, offers membership that qualifies all members for free 2-day shipping as well as free 2-day shipping for college students.
Why should I use a site such as Amazon.com?
Amazon.com, in addition to selling a multitude of items also acts as a middle man between small scale sellers and the consumer. In this way, the consumer will benefit from Amazon’s anti-fraud protections and user feedback systems to rate sellers based on their honesty and customer service Personal auction sites, such as Ebay.com also have fraud protections and customer ratings, but sellers and buyers must usually interact to resolve issues stemming from the order.
Where should I go if I do not want to buy cheap books on the Internet?
Most large cities will have independent book sellers that stock new and used books at discounted rates. Additionally, large chains, such as Barnes and Nobles have discount racks that offer significant discounts on old and overstocked books.
Free Online Libraries Benefits
What are the Photo Resources of the Library of Congress?
- Enter the keyword in the “search all” box, or the purposes of this example, the South Andean beasts of burden, “alpaca”
- You will see either results noting the date, size and classification. You may also sort the results by the availability of the original photograph or print, from images available only at the LoC, images available everywhere and items that have not been digitized.
- Clicking on the first time “Four alpacas by a wall, Peru” will bring up detailed information which in this case, tells us the picture in question is a Peruvian postcard created in 1939 belonging to a miscellaneous collection.
- There are other options on the page to obtain additional copies and access to the original document.