Books In The Library
Thousands of books are waiting for your use. They do not require batteries, are highly portable, and can be used without an Internet connection. The books shown above are new additions to our collection and can be located by using the Card Catalogs. Other books, videos, and CDs can be found in the catalogs; or use WorldCat to locate books that are not in our collection. Use the links to the right to access the catalogs or contact a librarian for help.
What Is NetLibrary?
An additional few thousand, over 17,000 currently, ebooks are waiting to be delivered to your computer screen. These books contain the same content as their print twins but can be searched and read from any computer on the Internet. You will need to set up a user account at the college, but you are then free to use NetLibrary from any computer that can access the Internet. More information is available from the help section or ask a librarian for assistance.

Finding and Using Books

The tools on this page can help you find books on Mid-Plains Community College campuses and in libraries throughout the United States. You will also be able to read ebooks from netLibrary and other Internet sources.

Card Catalogs
Find what books, videos, ebooks, tapes, and Internet sites are in our local collections at North Platte or McCook by using these links. Our online catalogs can be searched 24 hours a day from any computer on the Internet. Most items are available for checkout or for interlibrary loan.
Select: North Platte or McCook

netLibrary
Mid-Plains' collection of eBooks is available from this link. eBooks are electronic versions of printed books that are delivered to your computer screen for a 4-hour (renewable) loan period. You can search titles, authors, and the entire text of any eBook. For more information, ask a librarian or see Using The NetLibrary Site.

WorldCat
Over 38 million bibliographic records to books in the world's libraries are in this database. This catalog can also be used to find books at McCook Community College's library. Books on all subjects can be located and then ordered through interlibrary loan.


Free, Full-Text Internet Libraries

Many ebooks are available for free to anyone with an Internet connection. Most of the books in the following collections are in the public domain. Generally, books published in the last 75 years are not included, but a large number of classical or obscure works that would not otherwise be accessible can be found on the following sites.

Internet Public Library
IPL provides basic reference books, links to newspapers, and texts of many classic books. Its listing of links to 20,000 freely-available online books include the complete works of Shakespeare, Sherlock Holmes and other classics. This site is also a good source for works on grammatical usage, citation formats for books or Web pages, and basic research and reference.

Project Gutenberg
Site contains a large collection of pre-1923 public domain etexts. The Gutenberg library has editions of Shakespeare and other classics as part of the 18,000 books in their collection.

Bartleby.com
Bartleby contains classic and current literature, nonfiction, poetry, and reference. Their reference collection includes such standard works as: The Columbia Encyclopedia, American Heritage Dictionary, Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, American Heritage Book of English Usage, Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, Strunk's Elements of Style, and the Columbia Gazetteer.

Online Books Page
This listing of over 25,000 free books is searchable by title and author. Major components of the site include an index to online works readable on the Internet, exhibits of interesting classes of ebooks, and links to significant directories and archives of online texts. One section of the site, Banned Books Online, contains censorship information and a directory of online books that have been the objects of censorship or censorship attempts.

The Internet Classics Archive
The Archive contains a "list of 441 works of classical literature by 59 different authors, including user-driven commentary and "reader's choice" Web sites. Mainly Greco-Roman works (some Chinese and Persian), all in English translation."

National Academies Press
NAP publishes current reports and books from the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council "on a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health, capturing the most authoritative views on important issues in science and health policy." More than 200 books a year are published and 3,600 books can be read online for free.

International Children's Digital Library
The mission of this digital library is to "select, collect, digitize, and organize children's materials in their original languages and to create appropriate technologies for access and use by children 3-13 years old." About 1000 freely accessible children's books in different languages are maintained on this site.

NCBI Bookshelf
This site contains a small collection of biomedical books designed to deliver the user "to the most relevant book sections for a particular search term or concept." Users cannot read the complete book but can navigate within chapters and sections.

Google Book Search
Most books located through Google Book Search are not available online in full-text format due to copyright restrictions. These books can often be obtained in print versions from libraries. Books in the public domain can be read on a computer monitor or downloaded.

EServer.org
This site's collection of online books, plays, papers, journals, poems, and other works is "an arts and humanities e-publishing co-op based at Iowa State University where hundreds of writers, editors and scholars gather to publish over 35,000 works free of charge."