Free Graphic Novels (DC, Marvel, Image, etc), Music, TV shows, and music on HOOPLA.
Free music that you can KEEP on FREEGAL
You are PAYING for all this with your tax money – USE THEM. Most likely systems will have all 3 or 2 out of 3, so if you aren’t sure call your local library’s reference/information desk and how you can get set-up or started.
how have i never heard of archive.org until today.. it’s an internet library that functions just like a real one, as in you borrow the books for 2 weeks and then they are returned to the archive. you can dl pdfs as well, but you’ll lose access after the 2 week period. it’s all free tho, literally just like a real library. i was searching for a cheap copy of this serial murder book from the 90s for my thesis and i found it for free on here. there’s like.. no gimmick at all? i’m so amazed. i literally just signed up and now i’m reading a super hq scan of this book for free. i love libraries.
Holy shit, I love this site you don’t even understand. It’s like a real library but digital, and it’s got so many options.
Need something for research? Got an obscure ass title and don’t have time to wait for it to come in? Gonna be bored as fuck all day at work? Just want to pass the time?
I don’t think you understand how much I love this site and just libraries in general.
A research tip from a friendly neighborhood librarian!
I want to introduce you to the wonderful world of subject librarians and Libguides.
I’m sure it’s common knowledge that scholars and writers have academic specialties. The same is true for subject librarians! Most libraries use a tool called Libguides to amass and describe resources on a given topic, course, work, person, etc. (I use them for everything. All hail Libguides.) These resources can include: print and ebooks, databases, journals, full-text collections, films/video, leading scholars, data visualizations, recommended search terms, archival collections, digital collections, reliable web resources, oral histories, and professional organizations.
So, consider that somewhere out there in the world, there may be a librarian with a subject specialty on the topic you’re writing on, and this librarian may have made a libguide for it.
Because you’re searching library collections, you won’t have access to all the content in the guides, and there will probably be some link rot (dead links), but you can still request resources through your own library with interlibrary loan, or even request that your library purchase the resources! Even without the possibility of full-text access, libguides can give you the words, works, people, sites, and collections to improve your research.
Search [your topic] + libguide and see what you get!
Walter Stabosz writes, “Delaware was the first state to ratify the US
constitution, giving it the moniker ‘The First State.’ It is also the
second smallest state, and has only three counties. Tonight in
Delaware’s most populous county, New Castle County, there will be a vote
that may decide the fate of a library built in one of New Castle’s most
underserved and at-risk communities.
The 40,000-square-foot facility know as the Rt 13 Library and Innovation Center,
features a library, work spaces, a computer lab, a STEM lab with Maker
Space, a learning commercial kitchen for job training, and a range of
on-site programming.
Those voting are the 13 members of the New Castle County Council. They
have to make the choice to either raise taxes (by less than the cost of a
monthly Netflix subscription), or to cut services for all 540,000 New
Castle residents. Services cuts will affect emergency services,
communities services libraries, and parks.
New Castle Save: Our Services is a
web site created by a New Castle County resident with the goal of
raising public awareness of the vote, and to convince the County Council
to pass the budget.
The vote is tonight is open to the public with time alloted for public
comment. It is at 6:30PM in the Council Chambers at 800 N. French
Street. Wilmington, DE 19801. There are multiple parking garages nearby.
As a library worker, there’s something I want to say to you.
You do not have to apologize for the books you choose to read.
At all. To anyone. You owe nobody any explanations; you need no excuse or “good reason” to be reading the book.
You do not have to be ashamed for wanting to read “bad” books. You wanna read Twilight? We got Twilight. Need a banal, cookie-cutter-plot mystery or thriller?Those are always fun. Our regulars check them out by the towering stack. Ask Betty for recommendations; she’s read them all. 50 Shades of Oh Fucking No? We’ve got it, we even got it in large print. Have fun. Check out the rest of our porn too. Oh, and the sex manuals are a MUST if you want to “experiment” yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask; they’re here for a reason.
Want to read a book written by a huge asshole everyone hates and agree was a monster? Yeah, we have those. No, we don’t think you’re an asshole for wanting to know what was actually written in there, or judging things for yourself.
You are not too old for Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Babysitter’s Club, or Captain Underpants. You are not too young for Sherlock Holmes. There’s nothing wrong with a boy reading The Princess Academy or Sweet Valley High. There’s nothing wrong with a girl being into The Hardy Boys or Artemis Fowl instead.
You do not have to pull the shame face and offer me an excuse when you check out your books. I don’t care if I got so angry at that book I threw it against a wall when I read it: you have the right to read it, and enjoy it if it’s enjoyable for you. THAT’S WHY THE LIBRARY HAS IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. If we only stocked pure, unproblematic literature everyone approved of, by authors of unquestionable virtue, we wouldn’t have any books at all. Or music. Or movies. It would be utterly fucking boring. And it certainly wouldn’t be a library.
Librarian here: Also want to point out its HIGHLY unethical for librarians to deny, suppress, or show judgement a patrons book selection. Librarians are really the chillest people you’ll meet and they are also legal anarchists. So go ahead and read fifty shades of grey or that weird incestuous anime series you’ve been eyeing for a while 🤗🌈🌈
““Welcome,” she said. “Welcome, and thank you for agreeing to be a volunteer with Multnomah County Libraries. We are so grateful for you and your commitment to our community. For the next hour, we’re going to go over some important information that you need to know as a volunteer, no matter what role you play.” I expected that we were going to learn about things like policies for canceling our shifts, or maybe where to find first aid kits. We probably did talk about those things. But the part that I remember most vividly is the first thing she talked about. “We’re going to start with the Library Bill of Rights from the American Library Association,” she said, and she projected the text of the document onto the screen. “Everyone who works for libraries, including volunteers, helps to support and uphold the Library Bill of Rights.” This was new to me. I’d been a regular patron at my local public library for years, graduating from Dr. Seuss to The Babysitters Club series to, most recently, my fixation on books about neo-paganism and queer sex. No one had mentioned this whole Bill of Rights thing. It was a short document with just a few bullet points. “Libraries support free access to information,” Bess explained. “One of our core values is intellectual freedom. This impacts all of you because when you’re volunteering for the library, we expect you to support the rights of library users to find and read whatever they want, even if you don’t agree with what they’re looking for.” She continued, “For example, let’s say that a small child came up to you and asked where to find the Stephen King books. You might think those books are too scary for someone that age, or that he shouldn’t be reading that kind of stuff. But that doesn’t matter. No matter what, we help people find the information they want, and we don’t censor their interests. Does that make sense?” Heads around the room nodded, and I leaned back into the wall, letting her words sink in. It was absolutely, positively the most radical, punk rock thing I had ever heard in my life. I can read whatever I want. No one can stop me. I can help other people read what they want. And no one can stop them. “This is core,” Bess added, “to a functioning democracy. We believe that fighting censorship and providing free, unrestricted access is key to helping citizens participate in the world. And, most importantly, we keep everyone’s information strictly confidential. So, even if you know what books your neighbor is checking out or what they’re looking at on the computer, you don’t share that with anyone.” As someone who kept carefully guarded notebooks full of very personal thoughts, I was especially excited by the library’s emphasis on privacy. All of this sounded great. I wanted more. I wanted in. I wanted to be a crazy, wild, counterculture librarian-witch who would help anyone read anything from The Anarchist’s Cookbook to Mein Kampf. I would be a bold freedom fighter in the face of censorship. I would defend unfiltered Internet access and anatomically correct picture books. Maybe I was only in the eighth grade, but I was ready to stand up to anyone who tried to threaten the ideal of intellectual freedom. Fuck blink-182. Libraries were the real punk rock.”
Can we figure out a way to do this to student loan debt.
I would read Ayn Rand to pay down my student loans
Our library ran the expenses and realized we spent about 3,000$ MORE than what we got back in trying to collect late fees. So? We dropped them completely. No late fees. Period.
If you keep a book, it auto renews two times. Then it comes up as overdue. If your overdue items exceed a certain amount, your account freezes. You can’t use any of the local libraries anymore until you return the items or claim them lost and pay for them. If someone else is waiting for the book, you can’t renew. Its that simple.
And guess what. Not only did we save money, but we /got more materials back/. More materials were turned in than declared lost as compared to before. There was no stigma to it. If you had already paid for the item, the money was credited back to you.
Because the people late fees actually affected were children and elderly adults – people unable to regularly get to the library. And the stigma of late items was dropped. Attitude and mindset are important.
we still have no late fees. And we are considered to be one of the top public systems in our state. People from out of state PAY to get library cards for a year because our online Overdrive system is amazing, and we have a ton of partnerships and interlibrary loan systems in place. AND we suffer less losses of both materials and patrons due to our “no late fee” policy.
two notes on the “common language” bookstore in ann arbour!
use this as an incentive to search for queer & feminist bookstores within your own community! there may be some closer to you than you think, and all independent bookshops could use help, especially those that serve marginalized communities
momentum matters! today is great, but these bookstores will also need customers in a month, over the summer, next year, etc. giving them patronage in the future is essential to their survival!
and, if you’ve got one nearby, why not stop in and see what community events they host? establishing physical community is a great way to enrich your life & show support for booksellers.
ALSO: LIBRARIES
If you can’t drop money but also want to be local, libraries are where it’s at. We librarians are talking about this creating diverse and meaningful collections all the time and if a library’s collection ISN’T that, particularly in very conservative areas, it might be because the admin won’t take risks without prompting. You request a library purchase a bunch of queer books? There is a chance you are making a librarian’s DAY because you gave them an excuse to do their job better than they’re allowed to because their admin is afraid of community backlash. You can usually find a link on the library’s page to request books, or fill out a slip at the library itself.
Also many libraries have really great programming serving marginalized communities. I’m volunteering at a Drag Prom hosted by a public library next month, and my town just had a teen-lead forum about racism locally which is amazing.
PLUS LGBT+ libraries exist! In particular I wanna shout out Renegade Library, which is a pop-up queer library in Houston, TX that a very good friend of mine started this past year.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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