What Are the Major Online Libraries?

Gone are days of encyclopedias and almanacs and hello to online research. While there would still be a good number of students who goes to libraries and research the traditional way, book after book for the information they need, more and more students find it handy to open up a desktop, iPad or even iPhones and search the web.

So what are the major online libraries that people can rely on for free and easy to use? Listed below are the major online libraries visited by most students to acquire information for projects, researches, reports or for whatever purpose this may serve them.

Questia is the world's largest online library there is which offers high quality books, journals and literatures. It was the first 24/7 online library that has provided writing tools and note taking options for students and enthusiasts to quote, cite and create footnotes accordingly.

Internet Public Library is a public service organization site which works very similarly to a traditional library. It serves answers to questions of students in the ipl2's wide variety of book collection by asking the ipl2's librarian online.

Project Gutenberg is a digital archive of literature mostly from the Western traditional culture. It's actually the oldest running online library. It currently has more than 36,000 items in their library and they try to possibly make everything free.

The Free Library is a website that offers absolutely free online news, books, magazines, journals and references in different sections like health, business, law, etc. in full versions. This is one of the largest of the major online libraries available in the world today. One could search through the site by keywords to make it easier for them to locate the e-books that they are looking for although e-books are grouped together by subject.

Online Books Library offers free to read books over the internet.

LibrarySpot.com is a website which allows access to the top encyclopedias, dictionaries, magazines and newspapers. Not a major source itself, it just helps you find information. This is a kind of library middle-man, if you will.

Bibliomania provides free online literatures complete with study guides on the most famous literatures as help for student and teachers.

These are some if not all the major online libraries there is. These major online libraries have given traditional libraries a major setback and have given birth to a new breed of its own. These major online libraries are sprouting from every corner of the world for it has brought about convenience to most people. Research or studying alone is already difficult; a tedious work for others even and finding ways to get information should not be anymore. T

Today, Google is trying to come up with the biggest online library where archive of books, literatures and journals has been compiled. They have been scanning most if not all books, literatures, journals, novel and the likes for easy internet access to all of these. Their goal is preserve the world of today and that includes all the information available to date. The major problem is that most of the world's literature is still subject to copyright laws and sancations.

With today's technology, this is surely the way to go. It is just right to make life easier for everyone. Of course, the more options the better. Now, it would be up to the students or the people to decide if they want to do traditional research or go browse the major online libraries.

Honorable Mention On-line Libraries

  1. American Library Association
  2. E-Library.com
  3. Library of Congress
  4. Online Books Page
  5. The British Library