Perlego is a digital library that offers readers unlimited access to over 1 million academic, professional and non-fiction eBooks. They have been billed as “the Spotify for Textbooks” by the Evening Standard.[1] It is a membership-based service that allows users to read any book available in the library for the duration of their membership.[2] From Wikipedia.
When I was studying at university level during covid, the physical library was shut and this was the alternative.
It was ok but I preferred the physical library as it was curated for the subject and so you could browse and be surprised at what was relevant without having the perfect search terms.
It was good but not good enough for me to carry on a subscription when I left uni to go volunteering.
In addition to my local library, I also have access to a provincial-level library that offers complementary online resources, including all of O'Reilly's collection (lots of technical books).
Rarely do I need to stray from there. Anything that's not available online can generally be ordered through inter-library loans (very useful for small rural libraries!)
And don't forget that many libraries will buy books if you recommend them.
Neat service! And if I would more reliably read books on a device (a practice I haven't yet gotten the hang of), it might be worth the cost, though I twitch at not having a copy of the book I read and like.
One thing, I regularly bump into scientific texts related to fermentation that I want to read, so punched 'fermentation' in their search and they have a lot I like but I also found the entry below which I'm not sure how to take:
doughStroke.png
My previous laptop never exploded like that. Read this tiny ad while I sweep up the shards.
A Webinar Recording: Helen Atthowe's Backyard Food Forest