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New York Public Library’s App Lets You Download Over 300,000 Books for Free

By Megan Cooper on March 24, 2020

Iphone displaying SimplyE e-reader home screen

Photo: New York Public Library

The New York Public Library’s e-reader app, SimplyE, is here to give you enough books to read through the rest of the year. The library released its free e-reader app in the summer of 2016, and the app currently hosts around 300,000 books and countless daily/weekly publications for checkout by NYPL cardholders. Up to three books can be borrowed at a time by library patrons; the library only has a certain number of licenses for each book listed in their online catalogue, creating limitations on the specific number of checkout’s for an individual title at a time.

Expect to see increased wait times on popular publications due to the NYPL’s closure amid coronavirus quarantining. While users wait to checkout the latest New York Times bestseller, they can peruse the numerous databases, like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, accessible on SimplyE. As for researchers’ concerns, books in the public domain are available for permanent download.

SimplyE offers a small selection of books which all users can borrow, but only NYPL cardholders can access the vast catalog in its entirety. However, many local libraries offer their own options for digital book lending using applications like Libby. Specifically, NYPL’s SimplyE is available for download on both Android and IOS systems, and is the perfect solution for bibliophiles to get their literary fix while self-quarantining.

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We're introducing SimplyE, a new app that gives NYPL cardholders the ability to browse, borrow, and read more than 300,000 free e-books from the Library, in just a few steps. Download SimplyE, log in with your library card and PIN, and start reading! Grab the app today for iOS or Android by searching for “SimplyE”. 📱📚

A post shared by The New York Public Library (@nypl) on Jul 12, 2016 at 8:51am PDT