ANN ARBOR—The Internet Public Library at the University of Michigan School of Information has added the 20,000th item to its catalog of online books.

These freely available books (www.ipl.org/reading/books) run the gamut from classic texts by the likes of William Shakespeare, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Jane Austen, to more recent works available from publishers such as the National Academy Press, iUniverse, and Baen Books. The listings can be browsed by title, author or subject, and can also be searched.

“The book that has received the honor of being the 20,000th cataloged title is the Project Gutenberg edition of ‘The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci,’ which is also the 5,000th text released by Project Gutenberg,” says IPL Director David S. Carter.

The Internet Public Library plans to add to its listing of freely available online books in the coming months as it celebrates its seventh year of providing service to the Internet community.

“Boot up your computer and read a book,” Carter says. “With over 20,000 books available on topics from Russian fiction to Keynesian economics to sacred religious texts to mathematics, there’s something of interest for nearly everyone.”

The Internet Public Library is an educational initiative of the School of Information. Technical support for the Online Texts Collection is provided by the University of Michigan Digital Library Production Service.