NetLibrary (Exercise #22)

I'm skipping ahead because I'm at work. I think I should probably do YouTube and podcasts at home, where I won't feel bad about using sound. Most of our e-books are provided by NetLibrary, so I'm very familiar with their materials. I've even selected some stuff from them. It's nice that the books we have from NetLibrary are listed in our catalog. I find that most people don't like to read books online though. Often when I tell patrons, even supposed "NetGeneration" people, that we have an electronic version of a book, they'll ask if we have a print version too. It's nice though for books that are very popular. In those cases the print is often checked out, so it's nice to be able to give people another way to have access.

Project Gutenberg is really great. I used it from time to time as an undergraduate and in graduate school. It gives you access to some really unusual stuff that isn't always in the collection. You can find books, pamphlets, essays. Plus there's foreign stuff. It can be a little hard to search (though it has gotten better), and you don't get to see what the original document looked like in most cases (unlike some databases that libraries subscribe to). Still it's free, and it does give you access to some really great materials. I was surprised by all the links to Wikipedia. I don't remember seeing that before.