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Internet Bibliographies

This is just some quick ideas on bibliographies in the 21st century using the internet. Before you had to go to a library, see if a book was there, then check it out etc. Obviously the access to information with the interent is much simpler. Physical Libraries are useful. But when you're doing research, especially outside of a university you're going to run in to a bunch of problems.

Bibliographies and reading lists

If you don't know anything about a atopic where do you start? If you want to learn about react, fins you'll find a bunch of resources. There are learning paths and there are courses. All of which are good. But if your topic is more niche and you're not in a university you have to find it for yourself. So here are some steps in order to get started.

  1. Try find some anthology if you can. If not next step
  2. Try hunt down a summary of the topic.
  3. Look through the bibliography of the summary. If your lucky the author will be adding further reading sections at the end of each book.
  4. Try to segment your recorded bibliography.
  5. Recursively go through the bibliography and try to find more summaries and anthologies.

Getting the goods.

Obvioulsy this is no good if you can't get any of the books. If you have access to a university, then you have an upper hand. However, if you don't then no need to fret. You might be a little worse off, but I think you can get close.

Here are some resources for searching for books

  • libgen [dot] is
  • scihub

Other paid alternative is perlego.com. I've used it and it has a great selection. Couple of issues with availability in different countries.

If you get a download of the books, then they are usually going to be in the follwoing formats

  • .pdf
  • .epub
  • .mobi

There are others of course. But these are the most common.

If you have a kindle you can use the send to kindle feature. They currently only let you send certain types of format to your kindle, you couldnt use .epub for example. But you can use .mobi. That's changing in the end of 2022. So you can send the .epub to your kindle. The only restrictions on top of that are that it has to be under 50mb.

This is about as complicated as it needs to be for me. If there are other cool things that I'm missing let me know.

Addenda

There is a real need for libraries, that are well stocked and open to non univeristy people. It has been in the back of mind to build a private library that operates on a grants basis. The idea is simple. I well stocked and well designed private libraries that accepts rolling applications for access. Access is given like a grant. You can use the library 24/7. If there's a book that you need it can be ordered in for you. It would be my hoep that there would be no major restrictions on admittance. I'm not a fan of hyper restrictive libraries. Clearly defeats the purpose of what I'm taking baout here on the freedom of information.

You would want to be quite generous in the application of the grant. But a simple interview and a go no go decision is probably good. Will probably expand on this idea again at a later point if I can.