25 Awesome Library Apps For Your iPad

Libraries may be a symbol of long gone times for the rest of us, but they are a huge part of a student’s life. College students, particularly, spend hours at a time in their college libraries, especially before exams.

But I bet all you library users wish there was a simpler way to get books and information than having to visit your library, find your book, sit at a public table, and take notes. Well, if you have an iPad, your life is about to become much easier. Just download one of these 25 excellent apps, and your iPad will be able to take care of all your library needs.

1. My Library

My Library is a very handy tool for organising your personal media collection. For four dollars, you can view your collection of books, movies, and CDs, and also keep a tab on who you loaned a book out to or who you borrowed it from.

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2. Library Books

If you borrow a lot of books from the library, but keep missing the return date, This app can really help you manange your library books. It keeps a tab on all the books you are borrowing, and gives you a reminder just before it becomes due for return. For just three dollars, this app can save you a lot of money in fees.

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3. GoodReader

GoodReader is one of the best reviewed iPad apps on iTunes, with many reviewers describing it as ‘essential’. GoodReader supports not only all the popular file types, but is able to manage PDFs and TXt files of huge sizes. Priced at $5, it’s more than value for money.

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 4.  Book Crawler

This app, priced at $2, lets you upload your entire book collection in the database with barcode scanning, so that you do not forget what books you own or have read. It’s very useful for book lovers who frequently buy books, and often end up buying the same book twice. You can also share reviews with other users.

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 5. iBooks

The iBooks app lets you download and read books from iTune’s substantial collection. The experience is pretty realistic too, with bookshelves from which you tap to select your book. The best part is that it’s totally free.

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6. Stanza

This free app lets you purchase over 50,000 books from partner stores. If you don’t want to spend money and are looking for free books, you also have a further choice of 50,000 excellent free ebooks from Project Gutenberg.

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 7. Kobo

Not only does Kobo let you select from millions of free or inexpensive ebooks, it also lets you share your reviews and favorite excerpts with friends, making reading a very social experience. This totally free app also lets you customise your reading screen to your comfort.

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 8. Free Books

Free books is not a free app, it costs $2, but the reason for its name is that once you download it, you get access to more than 23,000 books at no added costs and no download caps. Whether you are looking for subject related books or just some pleasure reading, you’ll find it here.

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9. IOP Science Express

If your course or your job requires you to stay updated with scientific events, this free app could be just what you need. It lets you search, browse and peruse the latest articles published in various IOP magazines.

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 10. Mobile Abstracts

This app is specially made for medical students and professionals, who need to stay ahead in their awareness of developments in the medical field. For just $1, the Mobile Abstracts tool will let you search and read over 20 million medical journal abstracts in PubMed.

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 11. iResearch

This free app is from American Institute of Physics, and lets you select from a million articles related to physics and its various branches. If you like an article you can download it, store it locally, and read it offline. Ideal for physics students and researchers.

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 12. Book Buddy Lite

Locate any book in your library with ease, share your favorite books with your friends, and keep a tab on the books you are borrowing from public libraries or lending out to people with this free tab.

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 13. Overdrive Media Console

If you wish you didn’t have to buy ebooks and could just borrow them like in a real library, this app lets you do just that. Seclect your ebooks and audio books from over 18,000 libraries worldwide, and as soon as your borrowing period is over, the books simply expire, saving you the hassle of returning books and paying late fees.

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14. Meegenius!

Meegenius is an awesome free app for parents who want to encourage their toddlers to read. You can download over 300 books with lovely illustrations, and let your children read along with the easy to read text and word highlighting.

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15. Kindle

If you have a preference for Amazon’s Kindle rather than the readers provided by Apple, you can easily download this free app, and use your iPad like a Kindle. This app gives you access to over 1 million Amazon books, as well as letting you customize your reading experience to the maximum.

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 16. ICDL Free Books for Children

The International Children’s Digital Library brings you this free app to let your kids enjoy stories and fairy tales from around the world. Apart from well known stories, they can read stories that are from other countries and that appeal with their novelty.

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17. iSSRN

For students of the social sciences and humanities, this brilliant free app givees you access to thousands of scholarly researches, articles, and books. Papers can be viewed directly through the app, or can be downloaded and emailed.18

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 18. Local Books

If you are a book lover through and through, you will love this free app that will let you know about book stores and libraries in your area, and also update you about upcoming book events to be held near you. You can even discuss your readings with other book lovers.

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19. British Library 19th Century Books

Your thirst for old and historical books will be quenched with this app, that lets you download over 30,000 19th century books for a tiny subscription fee each month. The nicest part is that the ebooks preserve the old world looks of the original books.

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 20. Access My Library

Ever been in a situation where you needed a book urgently, but it was the middle of the night and all the books were closed? This free app solves the problem for you forever by giving you access to your library’s online resources, even during afterhours.

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 21.  DCPL

The DCPL (District of Colombia Public Library) app acts like a gateway for all the online resources of the famed Washington DC Library .It lets you read reviews, search for and download new books, and locate your nearest DC Library.

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22. WorldCat Mobile

If you simply cannot do without hard copy of a book, this app will help you locate your nearest library which stocks the book currently, and will also show you the fastest way to get there.

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 23. ACS Mobile

This free app from the American Chemical Society lets you search for and view from their updated reserve of research content, in the field of chemistry. Excellent for students and those who are researching branches of chemistry.

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 24. arXiv

This free app lets you access over a half million e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Nonlinear Sciences, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance, and Statistics.  Once you locate an e-print, you can view its abstract and metadata or scroll through the PDF file.

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 25. NYPL Biblion: World’s Fair

Browse through a huge collection of documents, pitures, audios and videos from the 1939-40 NYPL World’s Fair. The app really gives you a feeling that you are browsing an actual library.