North Chicago’s Metra Station has been adopted by Friends of the Library to provide free books for people using the trains there.

A book rack has been installed at the station with a sign that reads “Take One. Ride and Read Book Rack.”

The principle is that people can take the books that they wish to read & are encouraged to bring them back when they have finished reading. If the supply of books gets low. the Friends of the Library have said that they will donate more, in the hope that this will nurture a community of readers.

A fashion show held by the Friends helped to fund the library and drew an audience of over a hundred people.

The ribbon was cut on Wednesday by Mayor of North Chicago Leon Rockingham, who said that he was very proud that Friends of the Library had gone out into the community and brought about this scheme.

“This helps raise the profile of the library,” he commented. “Maybe people will take advantage of all the different things the library has to offer. They have computer services, children’s books, adult books. I just want to thank them for all their efforts. This gives train passengers an opportunity.”

Some of the titles available include “The Di Vinci Code” by Dan Brown, “The Almighty” by Irving Wallace and “The Prince of Tides” by Pat Conroy.

Today, we’re highlighting another fantastic free resource from Oxford-based publishers HowTo

There’s a free online ebook on the site called “Getting Out of Debt and Staying Out” by Tony Palmer. With extensive knowledge and experience of the financial sector, Tony has had much contact with people with debt problems and passionately believes that there is a need for more and better advice on credit and debt.

The book takes into account that everyone has different circumstances (it gives bespoke advice for people who are renting for example)

Have a look at it here:

Debt Money

After all, if you’re worrying about your finances, do you really want to pay for a book to advise you when there’s one this good for free online?

A recent discovery at Read Free Books, techbooksforfree.com deliver exactly what you’d expect from their name.

Anyone looking to expand their skills in Java or Linux would do well to investigate this site. It’s a fairly “no-frills” site visually, but anyone spending their days looking at code will probably be used to that!

Many universities are now examining whether textbooks could soon be a thing of the past. With the advent of such devices as Amazon’s Kindle ebook reader, the days of students lugging bags of heavy textbooks could soon be numbered.

The key factors in this system working are educational publishers making their entire catalogues  available as ebooks, or the flexibility to alter the reading lists accordingly. Whilst it is established that a 100% changeover to ebook-based learning would cut the average university student’s spending on textbooks, how soon this will become the norm remains to be seen.