Michigan eLibrary

[Difflugia]

I just realized that the State of Michigan has a huge library of ebooks that can be read online or checked out using Adobe Digital Editions. It's available to anyone with an IP address that geolocates to Michigan or (according to the website) anyone with a Michigan drivers license. You're asked to create an account, but I only needed an email address. I've only accessed it from within Michigan, but the website says that if you're outside of Michigan, you'll need to enter your drivers license number.

There's very little popular fiction and the collection is heavily weighted toward academic stuff, but there's a lot there. There are large collections from particular publishers like Oxford University Press and Brill. There are also quite a few books for young kids, weighing heavily again toward non-fiction.

Go to mel.org and click on "Magazines and Newspapers" on the left. You'll get a search box and text implying that you're searching magazine collections, but the search is actually across the entire electronic collection.

The search is spotty, so try a few different search terms. I was browsing some religion stuff and got different results for "Apocrypha" than I did with "Apocryphal". On the other hand, you can have fifty checkouts at a time, each for up to 28 days (you pick for each checkout). The interface is a bit buggy (especially when using "open in new tab" for individual books), but I haven't had any major problems. Most books also have no limits on the number of simultaneous checkouts, so there's no dealing with a waiting list.

I don't know how many Michigan folks we get here, but I expect I'm not the only one.

[curtw]

Whoa. I moved to Texas in 1987, but my old Michigan driver's license number worked.

[Difflugia]

I moved from Michigan to California for a couple of years and had a California license. When I moved back to Michigan, their computer still showed my license as valid.