Free+books+online


 * __Free Books Online:__

Project Guttenberg**: http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page “ Project Gutenberg is the first and largest single collection of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.” Most books are free because the copyright has expired in the US, i.e. they are no longer in the public domain.” Activities:
 * What were the top 100 downloads yesterday?
 * Search for Dickens and see how many titles and formats there are including audio books.
 * How else can you view these books besides on your computer?

Why can't I read the entire book? “Many of the books in Google Book Search come from authors and publishers who participate in our Partner Program. For these books, our partners decide how much of the book is browsable -- anywhere from a few sample pages to the whole book. For books that enter Book Search through the Library Project, what you see depends on the book's copyright status. … If the book is in the public domain and therefore out of copyright, you can page through the entire book and even download it and read it offline. But if the book is under copyright, and the publisher or author is not part of the Partner Program, we only show basic information about the book, similar to a card catalog, and, in some cases, a few snippets -- sentences of your search terms in context. The aim of Google Book Search is to help you discover books and learn where to buy or borrow them, not read them online from start to finish. It's like going to a bookstore and browsing - with a Google twist.” Activities:
 * Google Book Search:** http://books.google.com/
 * Magazines too: “ ** Magazines are integrated with book results, so each time you perform search on Google Book Search, you’ll be searching across our entire corpus of books and magazines. You can also limit your results just to magazines by using the Advanced Book Search feature and selecting the "Magazines" radio button. Any magazine results will be displayed with a “Magazine” tag right under the title.”
 * Search for a topic of interest to you. How can you tell if you can read the entire book, see a limited preview, or just a snippet?
 * Click on the Advanced Search from the home page. What advantages does this give you? Try using it to narrow the topic you tried above.
 * If the full book is not available, what options for finding it does Google give you?
 * What other devices can you download these books to?

Other web sites for free books:
 * http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/ebooks/
 * http://www.free-ebooks.net/
 * http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm
 * http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/internet/readers.htm#ebooks
 * Internet Archive Texts: http://www.archive.org/details/opensource