Here’s how you can read books online for free and kill lockdown boredom (Source: Getty images)
During the lockdown, most of us are stuck at home relying on streaming services and mobile games to pass time. However, the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) is giving an opportunity to utilise the lockdown period for reading.
The National Digital Library of India (NDLI) sponsored by MHRD and coordinated by Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur is accessible free of cost where users can find more than 64 lakh books written by 15 lakh authors in 250 languages. The digital version of the books and magazines can be read using any digital device at nil.iitkgp.ac.in.
National Digital Library is offering free books and lectures. (Image: NDLI)
Apart from books, the NDLI website also hosts more than 6 lakh thesis by researchers from different Indian institutes, more than 4000 audio lectures, more than 3 lakh video lectures, law judgements, and more.
Here is how you can read books and download videos. (Image: NDLI)
Students sitting at home and doing nothing can also avail these services of the NDLI to not only access books but also question papers, solutions, and web courses.
How to use the NDLI website
The NDLI website itself mentions that all the resources on the website can be accessed without logging in, but for a better experience, users are advised to log-in first.
You can apply filters to search for books easily.
At the top of the website, there is a Hamburger icon that lets you browse the content on the NDLI website by— type, subject, source, and learning resource. Apart from that, the search bar lets you directly search for any book or author or topic of study.
If you are accessing the NDLI website on a computer, you will see an additional window where you can scroll through ‘Learning Resources Type’ to select books, thesis, article, manuscript, audio lecture, video lecture, question paper, solution, web course, law judgement and more.
There is another ‘Subject Domain’ window that lets you find content based on the subject including language, literature, history, geography, social sciences, technology, arts, philosophy, and more.
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Once you click on a subject or book, you will see a long list of items. You can apply filters as per your liking. The video lectures are meant to be downloaded first and you can read books and other forms of text directly on the website.