Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Websites I Use…


One source that can be surprisingly helpful at the reference desk (and is great in any event) is the Project Gutenberg (http://www.gutenberg.org/) site.  Project Gutenberg makes free ebooks available for download.  They are free because they are out of copyright.  This has proven extremely useful on a number of occasions because the classic titles that are the focus of school assignments are often out of copyright.  I can’t remember the number of times I’ve had a student in the library, the night before they needed the book, looking for a title that was checked out.  Since they needed if for the next day (take the lecture about procrastination as a given) it was too late to see about getting a copy from another library.  In this case I always check for the book on Project Gutenberg and (if it’s there) show the student how to access and read the title either on their computer or on their ereader.  The site has saved the bacon of many a student.

Of course I also use the site to find interesting titles to put on my own ereader.  Most (but not all) books published before 1942 are out of copyright so the pool of books that are potentially available is huge.  I’d say this is a go to site for anyone who has an ereader.