I was out of reading material, and due to circumstances not going to a store anytime soon. Out of the blue I suddenly remembered an old title from when I was a kid; "Tom Swift and his (etc..)" by Victor Appleton

Low and behold - the original series by Victor Appleton Sr. written around the 1920's is apparently in the public domain and can be downloaded as a series of E-Books! There are twenty five altogether, and if you download the Rocket Ebook Reader utility, the average book file size is about 120 Kbytes (Yeah! KILO bytes, not meg. Its a fast download).

I started reading the series (again) last night, and the style & language of the period is absolutely charming. The first book (Tom Swift and his Motorcycle) was printed in 1910, and number twenty five was published in 1922. The series was continued by the authors son and grandson (which I though was really cool) so be alert to the difference (if any) between Victor Appleton Sr, Victor Appleton II, and Victor Appleton III. Mainly its a matter of historic time period.

Has anyone investigated ebooks? The copywritten versions seem to be much less expensive than hardcopies bought from a book store, and there are no yards and yards of bookshelves (much less boxes and crates of old books) to dust off...

Rocket Ebook info and Reader Download page

Tom Swift ebooks for FREE

 

A couple of thoughts since I first launched this post -

Does anyone out there still have a public library card? I always used to have a library card, and had my nose in one book or another all of my young life. I don't have one currently, there isn't a decent library around where I live.

Which brings up:

Will public libraries eventually go 'online'? The "Gutenburg Project" currently has a wide selection of books that can only be read online. Many college and University libraries are set up similarly. Is this the future of the public library, as a result of modern information technology?

With the huge stink over NAPSTER, and concern for copywritten materials being pirated - is it possible that one of the frontiers for hackers is nothing less than electronic book stores?

Will there be another internet witch hunt centered around stolen books?

Several years ago there used to be "MIDI" files available for all sorts of popular songs, but those have all gome by-by in the wake of the NAPSTER controversy. They used to be featured as sound bytes at just about every private webpage. The above and the nuisance value of trying to turn off someones personal background music is what made them disappear from websites for the most part. Those you find lately are private compositions or videos from high-advert budget companies.

Huh...

Will "Public Libraries" one day be nothing more than a collection of aged and moderately trafficed servers in a back room at the local City Hall? Sounds kind of pitiful, doesn't it?

 

Adobe Reader can also open eBooks. My local library supports eBooks. You must have a library card and setup a free account with them to use the eBooks. I had a card and setup the account but only used it once. It works similarly to the way you normally check out books where you get the book for two weeks and can renew it. The way the licensing works is there can be a limited number of a given eBook out at one time. When your eBook times out, you can no longer read it even though it is still on your computer.

 

Really? Wow - no more late return fees! The book just turns itself off after a while...

"War and Peace" would probably have to be renewed a dozen or more times.