Example Virtual Libraries

Classic Books

The Library of Congress has piblished a number of classic books of interest, broken out by age range.

Titles include...

• Cinderella
• Jungle Tales of Tarzan
• The Arabian Nights
• The Pied Piper of Hamelin
• Treasure Island
• White Fang

Google Books

Google Books is one of the biggest virtual libraries on-line today. It can search the full text of over 25 million books and magazines it has scanned (as of 2015), and display the corresponding text. Many books, especially older ones, can be viewed in full online. An example displayed here shows various printings of Moby Dick.

Google Books can be a rich resource for locating a passage or viewing complete books on-line.

ICONnect

The American Library Association, has a wide rage of current resources and articles surrounding virtual libraries and publishing your library's content on-line.

LibriVox

LibriVox is a non-commercial, non-profit and ad-free project with over 24,000 free audiobooks placed in the public domain. It is powered by volunteers that record new content and maintain the site. LibriVox apps are available for Android and Apple phones.

This could be a great project for older students, first listening to and then recording and giving back text to the world community.

Wilton Library

The September 2004 issue of Learning and Leading with Technology offers great suggestions about building a web page for a school library.

To support literacy your school library page(s) can...

• feature new books,
• showcase magazine holdings,
• feature study tips,
• provide links to Web sites to reinforce classroom activities,
• highlight authors of student literature,
• explain library routine tasks, and
• offer contests, word of the day, and historical event of the week.

The Wilton Library web page is an example of how you can make your school library exciting.

A Virtual Middle School Library

Here's another an example of a very simple library page.

Check with your school or district's webmaster about creating web page(s) for your school's library.

ProQuest

Designed especially for K12 students, ProQuest has amassed magazines and other print media. The service is not free, but, as the costs of acquiring and maintaining these resources as hard copy in school libraries rise, increasingly online viewing is becoming the norm.