Almost 20 years ago, I was desperately saving my pocket money – theoretically destined for my school lunch – in order to afford about 1-2 books per month. After a couple of years I discovered local secondhand bookshops and the local county library. Since I was born and later grew up in a medium town, one public library was all I had access to.
Yet I found many hours of delight even in these situations. Although I remained a skinny girl, I never regretted switching the food money for books during my growth period.
I now live in the capital of my country, enjoying the fruits of many ancestors who built quality libraries, as well as the people currently working there. I have the luxury of reading in Romanian, but also in English, German, French and Spanish – because of existing specialized libraries which were unthinkable during my childhood.
Among all this wealth of information, there are books I may not find in paper, so I am searching them online. I rarely buy paper books because I like my home clutter-free and ever since I bought my Kindle I discovered the convenience of digital books.
So for the fellow book addicts reading this article, here are three main sources of public domain books – both classics and contemporary ones.
The Internet Archive is an American non-profit located in San Francisco where you can find many interesting books, audio files, moving images, software and archived web pages. They also provide specialized services for adaptive reading so that most disabled people still have access to information.
The Open Library was started by a grant from the California State Library and the Kahle/Austin Foundation. Its stated purpose is to create one web page for every book ever published. The goal was not achieved yet and being an open project, you can help completing the noble goal. They have created a network of libraries offering one of the biggest ebook lending programs – this is a trend I dearly welcome.
Project Gutenberg started about 40 years ago when Michael S. Hart settled to compile the many public domain books pre-1923 in a digital format. Although the founder has deceased in 2011, his project continues to grow because of the large number of volunteers who continue to digitize books and record audio books. It has grown from USA, settling local versions in many other countries like Germany and Canada.
If you found a couple of interesting books and other media on these websites, don’t forget to donate them a couple of dollars from time to time, since they provide a great service to the humanity.
What are your favorite sources of books – whether online, offline, in paper or digital format? Please leave a comment below!
If you enjoyed this article, sign up to receive more useful posts in your mailbox in order to enjoy your life and your autonomy for as many years as possible!
Share the article with your friends and stay tuned as I am preparing a book release on adopting calorie restriction without feeling deprived!
