Cool Tool: Digital Library Cards

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Free/Cheap Access to the Invisible Web: Kevin Kelly clues readers in to the fact that you can access numerous online fee-based databases by logging on to your public library’s website with your library card (you do have a library card, right?).

“This vast store of knowledge is found on the Invisible Web — that part of the WWW that hides behind passwords and subscription fees, and is beyond the grasp of Google (although Google Scholar is working on this). This part of the web holds the databases that professionals and librarians pay to search, and includes the scholarly and scientific journals I crave, as well as marketing and business information, digitized magazines and newspapers, and several hundred of specialized databases built up over the years by fees — but formerly only available to users at high prices. Very little of this material is available on the free web yet.”

Coverages vary tremendously by region and residency requirements do apply, although in many states you can get a library card for any library system in the state. Even non-residents can get a library card for a fee; Kelly opted for a free San Francisco card in his native state of California, and a New York Public Librarycard for $100. I just logged onto the Brookline (MA) library site and discovered I have free searchable access to the full text of all New York Times and Boston Globe articles, for starters. I have paid, oh I don’t know, $3 or $5 to the Times or the Globe when I have needed to download an article in the past. Alas, my library system doesn’t give me access to JSTOR (of which Kelly writes), an online depository of the full text of most major scholarly and scientific journals you can download in PDF format.