Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) is an on-line library, for which you do not need a library card at all. It offers over 60,000 free eBooks. That’s a collection size about equal to that of Murrysville Community Library. The books have been digitized by thousands of volunteers, and they are free to you, at least in the United States, because they are no longer protected by copyright. You still need the library to access copyrighted eBook materials, and the high cost burden for that might surprise you. The U.S. Copyright office at the Library of Congress says this: “The term of copyright for a particular work depends on several factors, including whether it has been published, and, if so, the date of first publication. As a general rule, for works created after January 1, 19…