By Tan Chong Yaw

THERE is no need to splash out cash to get a dedicated e-book reader like a Sony Reader or Kindle or to buy content. Your trusty PC or even your netbook can be used.

What is more, there is a local resource that boasts of more than 600,000 titles that can be downloaded to your laptop.

No, this is not some BitTorrent site but actually Singapore's own National Library Board's (NLB) website: www.nlb.gov.sg.

To access this treasure trove, you will need an NLB account, the recommended reader software and Internet access. To open an account, you need to give your NRIC number, name and date of birth.

You can start borrowing e-books immediately after registration. NLB e-books are treated like physical books. You can "borrow" up to four e-books - download them to your laptop - and "return" them after a loan period of 21 days.

Actually, there is no need to return the books.

They "expire" - not self-destruct like a message in Mission Impossible - and the digital bits and bytes disappear and can no longer be read after the loan period.

There are two main areas in the NLB website where e-books can be found: singapore.lib.overdrive.com which houses the more recent and popular titles and at eresources.nlb.gov.sg, where the bulk of NLB's e-books are found.

At the NLB's Overdrive site, you can find self-help books like David Niven's The 100 Simple Secrets Of Successful People to romance novels like Vicki Thompson's Talking About Sex.

Titles on the IT nuts and bolts are also available like 101 Ways to Promote Your Web Site and 3G Marketing On The Internet.

Go on a virtual visit

To get started on reading, special software is needed: Many of the books can be read using Adobe Digital Editions - supported by Sony Readers - but there are also Mobipocket versions.

Download links for the software are found on the NLB's Overdrive site. The software readers need to registered. Follow the instructions given on the website.

Besides enabling you to read your borrowed e-books, the software enables you to insert bookmarks, alter the font size and search for words.

To see the categories of e-books in the eResources area of the NLB website - go to eresources.nlb.gov.sg and choose "By Type" under "Browse".

The biggest collection - more than 500,000 titles - is found in the World e-Book library. Some gems include the Poets' Collection and Renascence Editions - English works printed in between 1477 and 1799.

The NLB has a collection of over 750,000 e-books as at March this year - more than 600,000 of them can be downloaded on the PC. It plans to add up to another 600,000 more books to the World e-Book Library this year.

Time to pay a virtual visit to the library to get some real reading pleasure.

Go online for other books

barnesandnoble.com

On the online arm of US book retailing giant Barnes & Noble (B&N), expect New York Times bestsellers at US$9.99 (S$14.50) - the benchmark Amazon has set for e-books - like Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father and Lev Grossman's The Magicians.

You will need to install the B&N eReader software - BlackBerry and iPhone versions are available besides the PC and Mac ones. But the bonus is that two free classics are included: The Last Of The Mohicans and Sense And Sensibility.

memoware.com

This is a stalwart for free e-books from Palm III days. The books are formatted primarily for Palm, Epoc and Pocket PC devices but there are PDF books that can be read on the PC.

No bestsellers here but find humour e-books like Elizabeth Worthington's How To Cook Husbands and how-to books like Marilyn Wilson's Speed Reading.

feedbooks.com

Free public domain books and original books from new authors are available here. The site also allows you to publish your own books - if you are so inclined. Download books like The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button and The Westminster Confession Of Faith.

The books are also formatted for the Kindle and Sony Readers.

diesel-ebooks.com

A commercial e-book site with titles like House And Philosophy - a book on the philosophical issues raised by one of today's most popular television shows, House - and Unmasked: The Final Years Of Michael Jackson.

The site offers deals in bundled books. For example, Twilight and New Moon - the first and second books of the popular Twilight series - are offered at less than US$17 (S$26) as a bundle.

tomeraider.com

The reader software will set you back £15 (S$35) and just over 4,000 free e-books which are not very up to date - August last year was the latest title - are available in this format.

But among them are reference gems like Wikipedia (as at May 2008 with more than four million articles), the Internet Movie Database (August last year) and the CIA World Factbook 2006.

zoosware.com

Get the Quran in Arabic, Malay and English here for Macs or Windows XP and Vista PCs and laptops.

Also for phones running on Google Android, Windows Mobile or Palm OS. All free except for the US$4.99 iPhone or iPod version from the Apple App Store.

laridian.com

Find up to 30 versions of the Bible here. Works for Palm OS, Pocket PC, Windows Mobile Smartphone and BlackBerry devices.

An iPhone version is in the works.

There is also a version for Windows PCs and laptops and one that works off a USB flash drive.

A bible like the Complete Jewish Bible and The Message cost between US$4.99 and US$29.99. A reader software which costs US$10 to US$29.99 is needed.

gutenberg.org

This is the grandfather of e-books which harks back to 1971, when the world ran on mainframe computers. Billed as the first producer of free electronic books, the site boasts nearly 30,000 free books like The Kama Sutra, James Joyce's Ulysses and Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary.

Most of the books are available in the unadorned TXT format but sometimes there are versions in HTML, PDF, ePUB and MOBI.

cytan@sph.com.sg

This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.

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