Online Books

I will start by presenting a couple of sources that will help with a couple of questions that many patrons will ask a librarian. Many authors will write books in a "series." Most patrons ask which is the next book in the specific series. The other popular question from many patrons is "Have you read any good books lately?" There are times when we, like many readers, would like to try finding another "good read" and maybe that good read is by a different author than who we are use to.

Fantastic Fiction.com is a free source on the Web that will answer the questions involving the order of books within a series. The website will list most of the books that an author has written including listing the books in series in the proper chronological/numerical order. The website is a very good place to find some information about an author, including other authors that may offer similar works of fiction like the author that you have been reading. If you click on the title of a book, then you will see the cover of the book, publishing dates, AND a description of the book.

Good Reads.com is another free source that will provide A LOT of information about authors and their books. Good Reads is a GREAT place to go to find reviews of authors and what they have written. What you can do is type the author's name in the search box on the opening page of their website. You will be given a list of books by the author. If you click on the title of one of the books, then it is likely that you will see reviews of that book posted by readers, like yourself. The order of books in a series are presented, BUT Good Reads provides MUCH MORE information by providing the reviews/opinions of readers of the books. I have read a lot of the reviews and I will offer my own opinion. If you are looking for the next authors and books to read that you would like to read, then I suggest that you look at the reviews of the first book of the series AND at least another book in the series that was written much later than the first book in the series. By reading the reviews, it seems like the first book in a series will present the characters and story of what is to come in the series. Also, by looking at later reviews, it appears that some reviewers will not like the first book in the series, BUT in later books, the author had time to develop the characters and writing style of the story to make the series more appealing.

Online Free Books

The Iosco-Arenac District Library's Online Public Access Catalog (online card catalog), with the help of HOOPLA, will provide free ebooks to read online. I will need to look into providing a better tutorial at a later time. However, for now, basically what you can do is type the title or author into the search box on the online card catalog. The card catalog will list all kinds of information including books in print, audiobooks, ebooks, DVDs, CDs, and more.

Click within the eBooks box on the left side of the screen and then click on "Include" for the computer to include eBooks, only.

Eventually, you will be given a box that asks you to type in your library card number and then your pin number. The pin number will be the last four digits of your telephone number that you gave to the librarian to input into the computer when you applied for your library card, originally. After that, you will select how to download the ebook. I chose to try the HTML edition. For me, the page of the ebook scrolled to the right rather than up or down. There is more that I could say, but that will take more of a tutorial at a later date.

HOOPLA can be accessed by going to the Iosco-Arenac District Library Headquarters website. The hoopla button is on the Headquarters website screen. You can click on that button or click on this hoopla link. Hoopla will ask for your email and password in order to access all that hoopla provides.

Hoopla's website has this description on thier website stating that "hoopla is the digital service of Midwest Tape, a leading provider of entertainment media products and services: DVDs, CDs, audiobooks and shelf-ready solutions, to public libraries across North America for over a quarter of a century. Hoopla Digital builds on that passion by providing public libraries of all sizes the ability to offer patrons an enormous selection of digital video (movies and TV shows), music, audiobooks, Ebooks and comics to their patrons."

There are thousands of Ebooks to choose from. The format for accessing the items is different than using the IADL online card catalog. Some may find this format easier to use. I will cover the digital videos in the "Video" section of Mark's Website, but I will say that there are MANY very good videos provided by hoopla. Again, I will say that this service is FREE for you, through the Iosco-Arenac District Library system.

There is A LOT to say about hoopla. IT OFFERS A LOT. Probably, I will provide a tutorial later on. However, once you sign up and can access hoopla, it can be kind of straightforward to find what you want. You can keep clicking until you find what you want.

NOTICE: If family members want to sign up for hoopla, we found an issue IF only one member of a family signs up and the other members of the family want to use the one family member's email address to log in to hoopla. My advice is for each family member to have their own email address in order to access hoopla. The reason that I say that, is that we had a parent visit the library and asked why the parent could use hoopla, but the two children could not access hoopla on their devices, while the parent was on hoopla. The solution was to register the two children with a different email address. The parent and two children, each, had to have a different email address, and probably password for each member of the family being able to access/use hoopla at the same time. I thank that family for bringing this to our attention. For that reason, more people may be able to enjoy hoopla knowing what they can do in order to allow all of their family the ability to access hoopla on their own individual devices, at the same time.

The Online Books Page is located at http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/aboutolbp.html

"The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all.

This website includes an index to hundreds of thousands of online books. You should not need a special electronic reader to read the book.

There are more directories that will lead you to more online free texts.

The Online Books Page was founded, and is edited, by John Mark Ockerbloom, He is a digital library planner and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania. He is solely responsible for the content of the site. The site is hosted by the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, who provide the server, disk space, and network bandwidth for the site. They also employ the editor, and support him in his various digital library activities (of which this is but one)."

Project Gutenberg is located at https://www.gutenberg.org/.

Here is some information that they state on their website:

"Project Gutenberg is the place where you can download over 60,000 free ebooks to read on your PC, iPad, Kindle, , iPhone, Android or other portable device.

We carry high quality ebooks: Our ebooks were previously published by bona fide publishers and digitized by us with the help of thousands of volunteers.

All our ebooks can be freely downloaded: Choose between ePub, Kindle, HTML and simple text formats.

No fee or registration is required, but if you find Project Gutenberg useful, we kindly ask you to donate a small amount so we can buy and digitize more books.

Over 100,000 free ebooks are available through our Partners, Affiliates and Resources."

The Literature Network at http://www.online-literature.com/author_index.php features free online books but also very good biographies of many of the authors. Many class assignments require biographies and this website can be a help for those assignments.

Bibliomania at http://www.bibliomania.com/ provides free online books as well research information about specific subjects, such as literary criticism. This is a good site to find books for leisurely reading and books for research help.

International Children's Digital Library at http://en.childrenslibrary.org/.
I do not have enough words to describe this ASTONISHING website. You have to look at it for yourself. "The goal of this foundation is to build a collection of books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary books from throughout the world.  Ultimately, the Foundation aspires to have every culture and language represented so that every child can know and appreciate the riches of children's literature from the world community." Basically, this non-profit organization is digitalizing children's books in all kinds of countries and providing reading in all kinds of languages. The digital images not only present the text, but also present the rich colors of the pages and illustrations. Please visit this website if you are looking for kids and children's books to view online for free.

The Public Bookshelf at http://www.publicbookshelf.com/ does a good job of presenting romance novels as well as fiction from other genres. However, once again, we must say that these ARE good reads, but just not the most recent bestselling good reads.

Public Literature.org located at http://publicliterature.org/ has collected free online books in fiction, nonfiction, and sci fi. Many of these are the classics.

FullBooks.com is located at http://www.fullbooks.com/

Children's and Kids Books Online for Free

Some of the websites listed on this web page will provide online children's books for free. There does not appear to be a lot of websites that provide online children's / kid's books for free. The following website is an exception.

International Children's Digital Library at http://en.childrenslibrary.org/.
I do not have enough words to describe this ASTONISHING website. You have to look at it for yourself. "The goal of this foundation is to build a collection of books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary books from throughout the world.  Ultimately, the Foundation aspires to have every culture and language represented so that every child can know and appreciate the riches of children's literature from the world community." Basically, this non-profit organization is digitalizing children's books in all kinds of countries and providing reading in all kinds of languages. The digital images not only present the text, but also present the rich colors of the pages and illustrations. Please visit this website if you are looking for kids and children's books to view online for free.