Since launching the Free Content Alerts column, which highlights sites and platforms where ebooks and econtent may be downloaded and read for free, we’ve brought to our readers’ attention 10 great sites to recommend to anyone looking for quality content online in digital format, particularly those unable to access quality ebooks through their local libraries, ranging from classics to professional literature and from popular fiction to scholarly monographs.
These are the ten sources highlighted thusfar on NSR.
Open Culture, a mission to collect the content that is free and [arguably] the ‘best in class’
Eserver.org, an alternative niche for free quality content (including ebooks) in the arts and humanities
Unglue.it, an ebooks site that functions like a true participatory democracy
Knowledge Unlatched, supported by libraries, and made available in pdf to any reader, anywhere in the world
Hathitrust Digital Library, a major source of open scholarship with legal issues seemingly behind it
Smashwords, where indie authors may price their books at ‘free,’ but ‘free’ isn’t the core mission
World Public Library, an impressive collection of free books and documents but a cumbersome registration process
Internet Archive, a nonprofit offering an overwhelming amount of free content (and triggering some copyright debates)
B-OK (formerly Bookzz), probably the world’s largest free ebook site with a minimally-invasive registration process
Project Gutenberg, public domain titles free to be read and re-distributed in the U.S. (but not necessarily throughout the world)
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