Free Books For All

Free Books for All provides a detailed and reflective account of the people. groups, communities, and ideas that shaped library development in the decades between 1850 and 1930, from Egerton Ryerson to George Locke, from Mechanics Institutes to renovated Carnegie libraries. A chronological narrative, lively writings by the people involved, tables, maps, graphs, and period photographs combine to tell the stories of the librarians, trustees, educators, politicians, and library users who contributed to Ontario's early public library system. The book brings to life a fascinating period of library history. The movement to use the power of local governments to furnish rate-supported library service for citizens was a successful Victorian and Edwardian thrust. Today, more than 500 public libraries span the province, serving as intermediary points between authors and readers and providing a wide scope of information and programming services for educational and recreational purposes. The libraries themselves are, in part, a tribute to the men and women who worked tirelessly to promote library service before 1930. This new study will deepen our understanding of the people and processes that established the foundation for modern public library service in Ontario and Canada.

One of the problems which face all librarians adding e-books to their collections is that of bibliographic control: there is no legal deposit for e-books and consequently there is no single place from which new titles can be found. If this is true of commercially published e-books, it is most certainly also true of free e-books... and there are many thousands of free e-books available over the Internet, many of which are of a quality such that librarians might wish to have them in their collections. The 2011 Guide to Free or Nearly-Free e-Books is offered as a tool for librarians and others involved in book selection (e.g. teachers in schools) in all sectors - school, further and higher education, public and special libraries - to facilitate easy access to free e-books and e-book collections which can enhance their digital library.

Today there are thousands upon thousands of self-published authors. Most of them are invisible. Nobody knows about them or their books. The sad truth is that writing a book is the easy part. Getting it out there, getting it seen, that's the hard part. A lot of people waste their time posting links in Facebook groups. Forget Facebook groups! There's a better way to promote your book.