We all understand that reading has a significant number of benefits. Yes, we are also aware of the fact that not everyone can afford a new book every now and then. Thankfully, there’s a wide array of free online libraries offering tons of ebooks to be read or downloaded without costing you a dime! And here’s a list of the 20 best online libraries where you can read free ebooks online and download them legally.

Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. Most of the items in its collection are full texts of public domain books. The project tries to make these as free as possible, in long-lasting, open formats that can be used on almost any computer. Now Project Gutenberg offers over 59,000 free eBooks. You will find the world's great literature here.

Questia is the premier online research and paper writing resource. Since its founding, Questia has helped students find and cite high-quality scholarly research. With an emphasis on subjects related to the humanities and social sciences, Questia provides the resources needed to complete for coursework. In 2010, Questia was acquired by Cengage Learning, the leading provider of research solutions for academic audiences worldwide. Since then, Questia's library has continued to grow.

Open Library is an initiative of the Internet Archive, a nonprofit organization. It is an online project intended to create "one web page for every book ever published". Open Library provides online access to many public domain and out-of-print books. Their ultimate goal is to make all the published works of humankind available to everyone in the world. And their hope is that libraries and individual book readers will join this project and together we can build towards universal access to all knowledge.

Note: Not all of the books in Open Library can be viewed online. If you only see a "Borrow" button below one book, it means you can only view limited pages via the online browser, to view the entire book you must borrow and download Open Library files offline.

The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all. Now their local index includes more than 2 million works in various formats. All of the books they list are free for personal and noncommercial use.

Read Print is a free online library that provides thousands of free online books for students, teachers, and classic enthusiasts. The site has over 8,000 online books by 3,500 famous authors and members can create their own personal bookshelves with ratings and reviews and join reading groups that suit their interests. What’s more, Read Print is one of TIME magazine's 50 best websites of 2010.

The Literature Network offers searchable online literature for the student or enthusiast. To find the work you're looking for start by looking through the author index. They currently have over 3500 full books and over 4400 short stories and poems by over 260 authors. Their quotations database has over 8500 quotes, and their quiz system features over 340 quizzes. If you have a question about literature, you can ask it in their Literature Forums where thousands of members can answer your question.

Classic Reader offers thousands of free classic books, poems, plays and short stories from a wide range of authors spanning several centuries. You'll find authors such as Dickens, Austen, Shakespeare, Edgar Allan Poe, and many others. The Short Story section is the largest and fastest-growing section on ClassicReader.com. You can read the books for free online and even add your own annotations.

The Classic Bookshelf is packed full of hundreds of readable classics. Enjoy all the books in plain web page format or use their clever reading applet making electronic reading almost effortless. You won't find The Lord Of The Rings or any Harry Potter books here. But you will find hundreds of timeless wonders from earlier years.

ChestofBooks.com presents free online books on various topics, like Art and Photography Books, Business books, Health and Healing Books, Craft and Hobby Books, etc. They have put a lot of effort into scanning, converting to text and proofreading the books just for your reading enjoyment.

PublicBookshelf is a platform bringing together quality authors and open-minded readers in a controlled environment where an exchange of ideas, creativity, and knowledge can happen. Their library will likely have something to suit you no matter your interests.

Internet Archive is the most extensive free online non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more. They provide people with universal access to all knowledge. The Internet Archive offers a wealth of free information, serves millions of people each day and is one of the top 300 websites in the world.

Fiction.us is a great place to find free online novels. Just as the name of the website tells, this site contains lots of fiction books including many award-winning books. Their books are split into chapters, so it's easy to remember where you left off. The site also offers poetry, plays and picture books.

PublicLiterature.org showcases some of the greatest authors from around the world. Many high-profile authors use the PublicLiterature.org column to discuss their latest work, provide samples of their work such as poetry, excerpts from books and plays, and share their thoughts. Additionally, PublicLiterature.org provides a user-friendly interface to read books online. At the same time, it gives aspiring writers the opportunity to share their work with a wider audience.

Authorama features completely free books from a variety of different authors. And all the classic literature collected on this site, as well as illustrations within the book pages, are in the public domain.

Page by Page Books is committed to bringing you a wide selection of the best public domain books available, all in an easy-to-read format. They have hundreds of classic books you can read right now, all absolutely free! It is an ideal way to expand your horizons, catch up on your reading list, or read books that it seems like everyone else has already read. All these classic books you can read now in their e-Library!

The Perseus Hopper is an open-source project providing a suite of services for interacting with textual collections which cover the history, literature, and culture of the Greco-Roman world. Their mission is to help make the full record for humanity as intellectually accessible as possible to every human being, providing information adapted to as many linguistic and cultural backgrounds as possible.

International Children's Digital Library is a non-profit corporation, which was initially created by an interdisciplinary research team at the University of Maryland in cooperation with the Internet Archive. The mission of the International Children's Digital Library is to prepare children for life in an ethnically and culturally diverse world by building the world's largest online multicultural repository of children's literature and offering free access to works from more than 42 countries.

Bibliomania is the best-loved literature portal on the internet. It has won numerous awards, including being voted one of the top 300 websites in the World by Forbes magazine. It has thousands of e-books, poems, articles, short stories, and plays all of which are absolutely free. You can read the world's greatest fiction by authors such as Sherlock Holmes mysteries, and all Shakespeare's plays, or just dip into some short stories by writers such as Mark Twain.

Bartleby is an academic library developed by Barnes & Noble Education, Inc. Great reference works, as well as historical and scientific texts, are available for free online from Bartleby. Current offerings on the Bartleby platform include Bartleby Textbook Solutions and Bartleby Writing. Its mission is to serve all who work to elevate their lives through education.

LibriVox is a group of worldwide volunteers who read and record public domain texts creating free public domain audiobooks for download from their website and other digital library hosting sites on the internet. The LibriVox objective is to make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet. And LibriVox is closely affiliated with Project Gutenberg from where the project gets some of its texts, and the Internet Archive that hosts their offerings.

Tips

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From the above top 20 best free online libraries, you can find a comprehensive collection of free online books and thus create your own library of favorite books. Meanwhile, if you come across some other wonderful free online libraries, do share with us in the comment section.

Hillary Lopez works for Epubor and writes articles about eBooks and eReaders. She explores the best method to help you read eBooks more freely and wants to share all she has got with you.