Free Books

Resource Review #3:

Though Kindle is sold by Amazon, there are many ebooks that are free to download online, and many (though not all) are compatible with Kindles. Here is a short list of some sites that offer free ebooks:

Google Books

Project Gutenberg

Bookyards

Munsey's Mobile

More specific sites like a scifi database: WebScription, and audio books: LibriVox ,Wired for Books

This is a blog listing free and cheap resources including a lot of these sites and more Free Kindle Books

Cost is a huge factor in the Kindle debate. As shown above, there are a number of inexpensive resources to download new materials. And the cost of a novel is much less to download on a Kindle than to buy new in a bookstore. However, the upfront cost is still a large chunk. There are also very few libraries that have found a way to cater to Kindle's standards of lending due to many copyright and licensing issues. I will come back to the library lending topic in subsequent blogs.

The cost of a personal Kindle is another contributor to the digital divide. If schools, publishers, and libraries start catering more toward the ebook market, it leaves out those who cannot afford the hardware necessary to read them. Also, with limitted budgets in almost every library, the innitial cost of purchasing a Kindle and the potential for theft and damage, is a real deterent.

It is encouraging to know there are many free resources availible for ereaders. The Googlebooks project and many others have opted for the Epub format that is compatable with most computers and ereaders. Public domain and open access sites help to keep the cost of using Kindles and other ereaders low. However, there are still legal issues and potential software incompatabilty that continually cause problems for ereader producers and users.