If you, as I do, sometimes wish you could find out of print, obscure books that pertain to your current historical research project, you might like to try a couple of subsites at Google: Google Books and Google Scholar. You don’t need a Google account to use these sites, but if you do have one you can save links to books you find right in your own account, and best of all, the account and books you download from Google are free.

When I find a document I want to keep in my electronic archive, to document records in my database, or to read in depth later, I like to download the PDF version. Most old books are available as full view copies, meaning they are out of copyright and digitized as complete books. If you find a reference to a book you think should be out of copyright, but there is only a partial copy listed, try another search because sometimes a copy from a different source is available as full view.

Saved PDF files can, of course, be used on your computer, but if you have an ebook reader like the Kindle, Nook or iPad, you can have portable copies on those, too.