Even though I can’t walk down to the public library to check out books and DVDs—or, more to the point, engage in the important work of shelf reading—the library has been reaching out to me with offers of its free online services. Publishers are also making lots of books and magazines available free-of-charge, as we know from reading the Washington Post and New York Times without benefit of the dreaded “you have only one more free article left” message. Each public library is different of course, but some of the FREE online or digital packages the San Juan Public Library has include Pronunciator (for learning any number of foreign languages); ACORN (for your highbrow British TV series); Flipster (various magazines very much not highbrow), Lynda (online courses), and more. Various academic publishers are offering free access to their journal backlist for at least another month or so. All of the journals published by University of California Press are free to the end of June. Project Muse, an online database by library subscription, is offering free access to more than 200 scholarly journals for the time being. If you click on the link you’ll see that digital books are also available FOR FREE from lots of academic publishers through Project Muse. Here is a random selection from Cornell University Press. The Internet Archive, which already houses free digital books, movies, music, software and more, is now creating a National Emergency Library Archive. This allows access to digital collections at a number of university libraries. And in case you didn’t know, the Internet Archive hosts the Wayback Machine, which allows you to find material from websites that are currently defunct, if you have a non-functioning URL. But wait, there’s more! I’m sure there is more. Just go to the website of your local public library, or local university library, to find out what’s free. Or, just type the following into your browser’s search function: free academic journals covid-19 Gotta run. Time to download some items while there’s still a pandemic on.
Laurie Wright Garry
4/10/2020 03:29:37 pm
Thank you for sharing these online resources Becky! Take good care!!
David Wight
4/11/2020 02:13:51 pm
Ditto the last comment. Thank you for sharing these resources, Becky, and letting the library come to us for now! Indeed a silver lining! Comments are closed.
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Author Rebecca Moore is Professor Emerita of Religious Studies at San Diego State University. She is currently Reviews Editor for Nova Religio: The Journal of Alternative and Emergent Religions and Co-Director of The Jonestown Institute. Archives
December 2021
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