Online Books

Collections of online books – or electronic books, or eBooks – are growing. Some of the more well-known and useful ones are listed below. All of ones listed are free and offer the full book, not just selections or chapters (or did at the time this was posted). There are others listed in the left-hand column; some of those require logging in with an email address or additional information (always read the privacy policy first!).

Be aware that a very small percentage of books are available online, and an even smaller amount is available for free. Most free online books are classics or older, as the copyright has expired, so no one has to pay to make them available. (Other than the obvious expenses, such as web hosting, organizing, and access.)

Any online books that the LeDoux Library has paid for will be found in the Library’s online catalog, at http://lsue.louislibraries.org/ or under “Find a Book”.


Project Gutenberg
http://promo.net/pg/
The first, and biggest, collection of free online books. All are available in plain “vanilla” ASCII text, which pretty much all computers should be able to read. The bulk of their material is from before 1923.

The Online Books Page
http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/
This isn’t a collection of online books, but instead are searchable listings to online books found elsewhere (including Gutenberg). The criteria require books to be available for free, in their entirety, not require registration, and be in any “stable, well-maintained format” such as HTML, PDF, or plain text.

Perseus Digital Library
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/home
This began as a collection of materials from and about Ancient Greece and Rome. While that is still its strong point, the library has expanded into other areas, including Early Modern English Literature and 19th century (1800s) United States History.
Note: this URL is different from the one on the left; this is for the new 4.0 edition.

Baen Free Library
http://www.baen.com/library/
All work and no play is no fun. Baen, a major science fiction and fantasy publisher, had decided to experiment, in 2000, with putting some of their books online for free. Eight years later, the Free Library is still going strong. Most books will be the first or the first few in a series, and are offered in a wide variety of forms, for various electronic book-readers, HTML, and RTF (rich text format; like ASCII, but a bit enhanced).