INTERNET ARCHIVE LIBRARY
Already devoured the novels you have at home? Good news: you can now access over a million books for free as part of a ‘National Emergency Library’ which just launched recently!
A non-profit organization, Internet Archive, has removed waiting lists from its comprehensive library of digitised books and other materials donated by libraries and universities around the world.
Normally you’d have to join a waiting list before being able to ‘borrow’ anything from its collection. However, these are not normal times we are living in currently! Due to this, now you can just take out whatever literary read you are interested in whenever you wish to do so. You don’t even have to live in the US to do this either. Book lovers throughout the world can access all 1.4 million of their PDFs!
From classic novels to hard-to-come-by academic textbooks, their collection is designed to help both students struggling with remote learning and readers deprived of access to local libraries.
The library will close on June 30th or at the end of the US ‘National Emergency,’ whichever comes last.
EPIC
During this uncertain time, organizations everywhere are doing what they can to assist students and families who are now practicing home-schooling.
Epic, the leading digital library for kids, announced that they are providing all educators and librarians the ability to offer students remote access to their platform for FREE through the end of the school year, June 30, 2020.
According to a press release, students will have access to the company’s digital library which includes over 40,000 books, audiobooks, videos and much more. As for teachers, they can stay connected to their students by assigning books for them to read and monitoring their students’ progress.
Interested families only need an invitation from their teacher to get started. A full list of instructions can be found here.
SESAME STREET
Sesame Street is making social distancing a whole lot easier for families. The company recently made a huge variety of its electronic books available online and they’re absolutely free.
As part of the “Caring For Each Other” initiative by Sesame Workshop, parents and children can now access over 110 free Sesame Street ebooks on all major downloading platforms. These include but are not limited to Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Nook, Google Play and Kobo.
According to the website, the titles are sorted for different age levels and include everything from alphabet and math books to animals and music ones. No doubt, there will be many books centered around Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and other members of the Sesame Street gang.
The brand-new initiative also includes resources that focus on at-home learning, weekly activity ideas to do as a family along with informational videos which teach kids how to correctly wash their hands and safely sneeze and cough.
There’s currently no specified end date for any of these free resources.
TIME FOR KIDS
TIME for Kids, the school-based publication that has provided quality, trusted journalism to millions of students in elementary classrooms for 25 years, announced that it will bring TIME for Kids to homes for the first time. As families, teachers and students adjust to school closures as a result of the global spread of COVID-19, the new TIME for Kids digital library will provide access to new issues of TIME for Kids and Your $, the financial literacy magazine for kids, each week. TIME for Kids will also make available a complete library of previously published editions from 2020 along with additional educational resources and activities.
In bringing trusted, age-appropriate journalism and news literacy instruction to classrooms, TIME for Kids is uniquely positioned to help students understand the news and the world around them. The first new issue of TIME for Kids in the digital library, a special report on COVID-19, has been available since March 23. The package included interviews with health experts and a look at how the pandemic is affecting schools, the economy and more. It also included resources for teachers and families to both facilitate conversations about coronavirus and to help children better understand the current crisis.
Each week, the free digital library will offer four grade-specific editions, including K-1, 2, 3-4, and 5-6, of Time for Kids. Every edition of TIME for Kids and Your $ published in 2020 will also be available in the digital library.
The digital editions featured in the free digital library allow children to flip through content in the same way they do with print editions, which are actively designed to engage kids. TIME for Kids content will also be available in multiple additional formats, including printable PDFs and published articles on TimeforKids.com, to ensure access for all students.
As teachers navigate the uncharted territory of virtual instruction, TIME for Kids is supporting educators with complete access to teaching materials, curriculum guides and weekly virtual learning plans for each TIME for Kids issue. Supplemental tools including worksheets and quizzes will be published for teachers and families on TimeforKids.com to serve as a turn-key resource for homeschool and distance learning instruction.
All educators can sign up to receive these companion resources through the TIME for Kids weekly newsletter: timeforkids.com/newsletter.
For more information and to sign up for free access to TIME for Kids’ new digital library visit: https://time.com/tfk-free. This new digital library will be available for free for the remainder of the school year.
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY (NYPL)
Alas, this one is more localized and geared specifically towards all those New York City-based literary aficionados. The New York Public Library has an app that allows anyone with an NYPL library card (and an iOS or Android phone) to “borrow” any of the 300,000 e-books in their collection.
The app is called SimplyE and will allow you to read books on your phone. However, beware, there might be a waiting list for some popular titles.
To gain access, NYPL’s free e-reader app, SimplyE, can be downloaded for iPhone or Android. There is a limit of three books that you can borrow due to a surge in the app’s usage now that we’re all at home, according to the library.
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