The lockdown has left students with too much time on their hands and not enough useful things to spend it on. And you can't blame them for idling their free time watching web series and gaming when they are cooped up at home all day long. However, the good news is that since you cannot limit screen time for your kids now, you could direct them to a host of free online libraries where they could do their research for their school projects and catch up on their fiction lists in their free time as well.

Here is a list of free online libraries that may be explored during this time.

Project Gutenberg

This online resource is one of the most widely know, with hundreds of students around the world using it. Started way back in 1971 by an American author Michael Hart, the site has hundreds of books that have been carefully digitised by volunteers. Some of the books go back to 1924 and is an excellent resource of pre and post-world-war literature. There are over 62000 full texts of public domain books in categories like literature, history, sciences, art, fiction, medicine and more.

Go to: https://www.gutenberg.org/

Bibliomania

Bibliomania is an excellent resource for anyone who is of a literary bent of mind. The e-library has thousands of e-books, poems, articles, short stories and plays. It also has study guides, reference books and study guides. The site has books by authors like Charles Dickens, James Joyce, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Shakespeare, Mark Twain, Anton Chekov, Edgar Allan Poe and many more to whet your interest. Interact with the booklovers' community on the site to discuss books, post opinions and ask for recommendations.

Go to: http://www.bibliomania.com/

Internet Archive

The Internet Archive is the mother of all digital libraries; the non-profit offers free access to researchers, historians, scholars and the general public. The website contains more than 20 million books and texts as well as millions of web pages, audio recordings, videos and images. Over 1,000 books per day are scanned in 28 locations around the world. The site is funded by donations and grants from many organisations and private persons. So the next time you need some special resources for school or college work, this is the best place to go to. Also, rifling through the many texts, audio and video resources will keep your lockdown hours occupied.

Go to: https://archive.org/

Open Library

TheOpen Library is a part of the Internet Archive and is a wonderful resource for modern titles. It has one of the best collection of fiction for all ages and plenty of modern titles by authors like Stephen King, JK Rowling, Agatha Christie and more. This is a lending library where you can borrow a book for the duration of a fortnight. You may also have to wait a bit if your book is out in circulation. A great resource to avoid lockdown-induced boredom.

Go to: https://openlibrary.org

The Online Books Page

During the lockdown, many renowned universities across the world have opened up their online libraries. You can go to these university sites and check out if you can get access to their library resources. One such highly-regarded online library is that of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States. The University's Online Books Page has more than 2 million works for you to browse through. These books are in various reader-friendly formats and free for personal and non-commercial use.

Go to: https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu

PDF BOOKS WORLD

This website has PDF books galore and all nicely formatted so that you do not have to ruin your eyes while reading them! There is a wide variety of genres, so that there is something for everyone. From fiction, non-fiction, academic texts and papers, children's resources, the excellent collection will get you hooked! The best part is that these books are optimised for personal computers and handheld devices like tablets and mobiles. They are in legible font sizes, with illustrations and reference links.

Photo: 123rf.com

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Did You Know About These Free Online Library Resources? - Femina