Digital Books Show & Tell   Tags: books, digital, learning, reading, technology  

• Internet Archive
• Baen Free Library
• Blio
• Digital Comic Museum
• Epubbooks 
• Feedbooks
• Gaslight (short stories in 1 page html)
• Manybooks
• Mobileread Forum ebooks
• Munseys
• Open Library
• PDFBooks
• Project Gutenberg 
• Suvudu (Sci-Fi)

list by Christopher Rumbaugh

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This is a guide to digital books. It includes information about popular eReader models, how to borrow digital books from the Library, and information about other sources of eBooks. For more information and further details, we encourage you to take a look at another guide created by Christopher Rumbaugh at Corvallis Public Library.

How-to video from CNET on using your Library to get free eBooks. See their accompanying article on choosing an eBook Reader

Check out some Library eBooks from the Northern California Digital Library

What works with what?
The chart below shows popular devices and what types of eBooks from the Northern California Digital Library they are compatible with. Click on the picture to download the full-size version

iPad/iPhone/iPod

The Apple iPad is more than just an eReader. It can surf the web and run any app in the Applestore. It can also play digital audio books from the Northern California Digital Library

Where to buy and more info:

• Apple Store

Kindle

The Amazon Kindle has the longest battery life of any eReader, and has the E Ink screen that allows for sharper images and reading in sunlight.

Where to buy and more info:

• Amazon

Nook

The Barnes & Noble Nook has access to the huge Barnes & Noble eBook library and allows you to lend your eBooks to a friend. The Nook can also play MP3 audiobooks from the Northern California Digital Library

Where to buy and more info:

• Barnes and Noble

Sony Reader

The Sony Reader supports many different file formats and is compatiable with both PC and Mac. The Reader can also play MP3 audiobooks from the Northern California Digital Library

Where to buy and more info:

• Sony Style

Other eReaders

There are a number of other devices that can be used to read digital books. These include desktop and notebook computers, cell phones, and tablets. There are new devices being released every month. Overdrive provides a good tool to see devices and measure their compatibility with our source of digital books (both audio and text).

There are many more devices to play digital audiobooks than to read eBooks at the time this guide was created. Most MP3 players and many smartphones are capable of playing digital audiobooks borrowed from the Northern California Digital Library

iPod/iPhone/iPad

By far the most popular MP3 player out there. The iPod Touch, iPhone, and iPad can download MP3 audiobooks directly through the Overdrive app. MP3 and WMA (Windows Media Audio) audiobooks can be transfered to any iOS device when downloaded to a computer running a Windows operating system (Apple computers can only download MP3 formats at this time).

Windows Enabled Phones, Blackberry (Pearl & Curve), & Droids (Motorolla, LG, & HTC)

Most of these smartphones can play MP3 files and can read ePub texts. Some of the Windows smartphones can also play WMA (Windows Media Audio) audiobooks.

Coby, Creative, Sansa, Walkman, & Zune Players

These iPod competitors can play MP3 and WMA (Windows Media Audio) files when synced on a Windows computer.

Other Media Players

There are many other devices that will play digital audiobooks. See a complete list of those that are compatible with the Northern California Digital Library 

What is Digital Rights Management (DRM)?

Digital Text Formats

• epub
  An open e-book standard created by the International Digital Publishing Forum (IDPF). It features reflowable text, inline images and the ability to use Digital Rights Management (DRM) such as Adobe Digital Editions.

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• azw
  Amazon's propietary DRM restricted format.

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• pdf
  A document sharing format created in the early 90s. It is best for highly formatted content and has the ability to use Digital Rights Management (DRM) such as Adobe Digital Editions.

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• mobi
  A format primarily designed for PDAs and older mobile devices. Also used on the Kindle.

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• lrf
  LRF, LRS, LRX are Sony's proprietary formats. They have been superseded by Sony's acceptance of epub as the default format in their ebook store.

list by Christopher Rumbaugh

Digital Audio Formats

• wma
  The popular Windows Media Audio format owned by Microsoft. Designed with Digital Rights Management (DRM) abilities for copy protection.

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• mp3
  The most popular format for digital music. By eliminating portions of the file that are less audible, mp3 files are compressed to roughly one-tenth the size of an equivalent file.

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• mp4
  A proprietary format with Digital Rights Management developed by Apple for use in music downloaded from their iTunes Music Store.

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• ogg
  a free, open source container format supporting a variety of codecs. Offers compression similar to MP3 but is less popular.
  

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• wav
  A standard audio file container format used mainly in Windows PCs. Commonly used for storing uncompressed, CD-quality sound files, which means that they can be large in size—around 10 MB per minute.