AUGUST 2019 PCWorld 127Depending on the title, books can be
downloaded or borrowed. The first group is
composed mostly of public domain classics.
Popular contemporary fiction makes up much
of the latter. In all cases, the books are
scanned from paper copies, which may raise
legal questions depending on your locale.
Open Library is aware of this as it states in its
licensing disclaimer (go.pcworld.com/ldi)
“There may be existing rights issues on some
contributions and in some jurisdictions.”
Make sure to check your local fair use laws
before downloading any of these titles.
At its heart, though, Open Library is a
community-driven library catalog. Indeed, it
has vastly more records than books—more
than 20 million currently—
as so many books aren’t
yet available in digital form.
For records that are linked
to ebooks, multiple edi-
tions are listed (James
Joyce’s Ulysses, for exam-
ple, is offered in 184
editions), each with its own
download directory.
To search for a
book, make sure Show
Only eBooks is checked
and enter the title or
author. Depending on the
title, books can be read
online or downloaded in a
variety of formats includ-
ing PDF, plain text, ePub, and MOBI. You’ll
need to sideload the downloaded file onto
your Kindle.Open Library offers well over one million free ebooks, but many are
subject to your local fair use laws.
Smashwords also provides access to more than to
more than 80,000 free ebooks from independent
authors and publishers.