Project Gutenberg provides 6267 different ebooks, most of which are classics. This site is easy to use and is free. Using this site, you can search or browse
by author or title. There is also a quick search to make finding the exact book's text much easier. Downloading a
book from this site is very simple and requires only a few clicks of the mouse. To start click on the
Browse button on the right side of the screen. A page should then appear where you have to choose a FTP site.
After choosing a site, then you can choose to search either by author or title. Select the best method
of searching, and then click on the first letter in either the title or the author's last name. Then, just scroll
down the screen to search.
Barnes and Noble provides a large list of ebooks. The ebooks are separated into categories based on their
subjects such as adventure, European literature, American literature, poetry, religion, and many more. Simply
click on a subject area and a list of different books will appear along with the authors. This site is
especially nice because it provides a brief description on what the book is about. To download a book,
simply click on the download button just under the book title.
Bartleby.com provides a totally different way of searching for ebooks. To find a book on this site it is
necessary to choose from reference, verse, fiction, or nonfiction. After selecting a category, use the
pull down menu to search. This is not necessarily the best method of searching, but it is effective.
Another way of searching on this site is to select a search method and to enter a title or key words, and
then click on "go." This site also contains a Featured Author, with a brief description of description of what they have accomplished.
Book Rags is a comprehensive guide to classic literature. To search on this site click on the first letter
of the title and a page will be displayed with all of the ebooks on the site that begin with that letter.
Along with the titles, the author's name will also be shown. To download a book, just click on the title
of the book. A nice thing about this site is that it has featured ebooks. The featured books are
recommended books to read. They provide a short description of the book for the reader to determine whether
or not they want to read it.
The University of Virginia's ebook library offers 1,800 publicly available e-books including classic
British and American fiction, major authors, children's literature, the Bible, Shakespeare, American history,
African-American documents, and much more. Using this site you can browse by subject or author, or
choose from a list of the best sellers. This site also offers a list of staff picks for the best books
to read in each subject area. These ebooks can either be used online or can be downloaded for easy reading.
The Ebook Directory claims to be the largest directory of free ebooks online. On this site you can search
for a book simply by typing in key words of either the title or the author. Another way of searching this
site is to browse by subject area. Some of the selected subjects include children's books, business books,
literature, or reference. This site also contains featured ebooks that are free to download. Viewing the
featured books may help when you can't decide on what book to read. On this site you can also sign up
for "The Ebook Update Newsletter."
ELibrary offers free ebooks and the best websites. Searching this site is very simple. There is a search
box for easy searching, or you can search by subject. Some of the available subject areas include life
science, humanities, society, entertainment, teens and kids, fiction, non-fiction, and many more. This
site also allows for selecting the type of format that you want use. The different formats include MS reader,
author starting, web address, or all formats. Choosing the format will help to narrow down the search.
Free-ebooks.net specializes in collecting free fiction, tutorial, marketing and business
ebooks as well as resources to aid you in promoting eBooks. This site offers a list of featured ebooks, as well as
a list of the top five downloaded books during the week. Using this site you can search by subject or you
can simply type in search words. On this site you can also subscribe to the ebooks N' Bytes Informer
free newsletter. This is one of the easiest sites to use.
The Internet Public Library contains over 20,000 titles that can be browsed either by title, author, or
dewy decimal classification. This site also offers a link to recently added texts, which are organized by
author or title. There is also a link to kidspace and teenspace (on the left hand side of the screen) for
books that more age appropriate. I recommend these links for use in the classroom.
Questia is the world's largest online library. Using this site you can search for books by typing in
search words and choosing where you want to search. When you search you can search in the entire library,
only books, only journals, or only encyclopedias. Searching is very easy using this site. Another nice
feature of this site is that the best books for each topic are pre-selected for you by librarians.
The Online Books page contains over 18,000 English works in various formats. All of the books from this
site are free for personal use. Here you can search by author and title, or, browse by title, author or subject.
Another feature of this site is a place to browse by the new listings. This site also contains a few
links to other indexes that may be useful.
The Young People's Zone is an ebook library for students. It contains a list of books considered to be the
classics. Searching this site is a little more difficult however. The books are sectioned off into categories.
Some of the main categories include fables, fairy tales, Peter Rabbit, poetry, Robin Hood, and Sherlock
Holmes. This site contains fewer ebooks than the others, but the books on this site are appropriate for
elementary students.
Links
Link to Northern Michigan University
J. Erickson: Jeericks@nmu.edu