fantasy libraries online: project gutenberg

Project Gutenberg is the granddaddy of them all. It started in 1971 at the University of Illinois, which is logical, as the U. of I. was the home of PLATO and touch screens and chat rooms and pretty much the general turn-of-the-millennium internet world except twenty to thirty years earlier. Now there are tens of thousands of public domain and creative commons e-books, and even some audio books.

One fantasy-library-like aspect of this site is that it allows for serendipity more than many online databases. You can search for specific items but you can also wander through the stacks browsing the catalog by title, author, category, or language (yes, there are lots of 'em). Or put in a key word in the search blank and browse by subject. Title and author browsing are true browsing -- you get a page with all the authors or titles beginning with your chosen letter, so you scan stroll -- uh, scroll -- around and see what's on nearby "shelves." Besides the obvious classics, there are pop-culture items, eyewitness testimonies of times past, and all sorts of odd and esoteric items in the shadowy nooks.

Project Gutenberg is truly free -- no money, no advertisements, no strings attached, no sign-ins or other hoops to jump through. And you can download the books and truly own your copies until your flash drive or computer burns out.

http://www.gutenberg.org/