
Are you tired of paying for content? Do you have four or five services you subscribe to for music, eBooks, or movies? Maybe even more than five? Feeling a bit burned out pitting one service over another? Well Dan has just the thing for you: Free digital content from your public library! Release yourself from all (or at least some) of those services, and check out what’s on offer from your local library! You’ll be amazed how you can download eBooks, listen to music and audiobooks, watch movies, and more… and all you pay is the price of your library card!
YouTube
Listen to the show on YouTube.
Links
Audiobooks
- OverDrive – Audiobooks, eBooks, and more
- RBDigital – Audiobooks, eBooks, magazines, comics, and more
- Hoopla – Audiobooks, eBooks, music, comics, and more
eBooks
- OverDrive – Audiobooks, eBooks, and more
- Hoopla – Audiobooks, eBooks, music, comics, and more
- Freading – eBooks outside the Times… the New York Times.
- Freading Help
Magazines & Comics
- RBDigital – Audiobooks, eBooks, magazines, comics, and more
- Hoopla – Audiobooks, eBooks, music, comics, and more
- Magazine Rack – The Magazine Rack at the Internet Archive. Tonnes of classic magazines.
Movies, TV, & Video
- Hoopla – Audiobooks, eBooks, music, comics, and more
- Kanopy – A fantastic collection of indie, arthouse, classic, and documentary film
Music
- Freegal – Download and stream music, free and legally
- Hoopla – Audiobooks, eBooks, music, comics, and more
Music
- Bellydance at Ebisu by Ryo Miyashita
- Elektro Attitude by Chuzausen
- When the Rain Comes by saQi (featuring Cheraki)
- Falling Under Water by saQi (featuring Marya Stark)
- Bunker by Meter
- Ocean Hotel by Uncan
- Weirder by Drake Stafford
Great content here. Thanks for enumerating the various resources. I hadn’t heard of Kanopy, and am excited to use it. One of my public libraries has the service.
It’s worth noting that, at least in the the U.S., many public libraries only require state residency for a library card. So when you travel within your own state, check out some of the major libraries and pick up a library card if it’s available. This will give you access to their digital resources. I always travel with a utilities bill for this reason.
In conjunction with having multiple library cards, if you are into ebooks or audiobooks, the “available goodreads” plugin for chrome is excellent and free. You configure it with information about all the libraries where you have library cards, and then, when you use the goodreads website, it will provide availability information for all of those libraries for that title and links out to the Overdrive e-resources of these books in your library list.
Thanks! Glad you liked the show!
And yeah, it’s such a pain in some places with all the library cards. It’s been my experience as a west coast librarian that most towns, cities, and counties have their own cards and, while they might work together, you still need a card for each one. Here in Maricopa County, if you live on the East Side you’ll likely get a card for Maricopa County, Mesa, Phoenix, and Chandler. (Maybe Tempe or Scottsdale too, depending.) If you’re on the West Side, you’ll have cards for Phoenix, Maricopa County, Glendale, and maybe Peoria.
I get so jealous of the Midwest states where your card is good statewide. That’s so much better.
And I’ll give that plugin a try! That sounds like a killer tool to share with some of my librarian friends here at work!