The Ultimate E-Alike Gift Guide

By Meredith Mann, Specialist II
November 25, 2015
Stephen A. Schwarzman Building
Cover of Opportunity Magazine, January 1928 Issue

During the holiday shopping season, the weather outside may be frightful — not to mention the crowds and the credit card statements — but your NYPL library card is so delightful! In addition to borrowing books, CDs, and DVDs, your library card gives you access to hundreds of online databases. These databases contain so many different resources, you may not need to leave your house to stuff your stocking. All of the “e-alikes” suggested below are available for free to our patrons, and you don’t even have to be at a library to use them. Just log in from our website with your barcode number and PIN to start the season off right.

To give the gift of an NYPL library card, send your friends and family to this link, or to their nearest NYPL library. For details on how to renew an expired card, click here. You can also browse a full list of all of the library's databases here.

Instead of going out and buying this...
...do this at home for free with NYPL!
Language-learning software
Learn 71 different languages with Mango Languages (or their app!)
A newspaper subscription
Read over 2,000 newspapers (U.S. and international) with PressReader (or their app!)
Magazines to read while traveling for the holidays
Read current, full-color issues of popular magazines like the New Yorker, Martha Stewart LivingPeople, Time, Cosmopolitan, and Esquire in our many databases.  Academic Search Premier and PressReader are two good sources for magazines, or search for your favorites by title with our e-Journal look-up tool.
Test-prep books
Get ready for the TASC, GRE, and SAT exams with prep materials and practice tests from LearningExpress Library
How-to textbooks and teaching guides for Photoshop, web design, personal finance, and other software/topics
Accomplish those New Year's resolutions with over 3,000 online classes and over 130,000 streaming videos from Lynda
Desk references (dictionaries, thesauri, encyclopedias, etc.)

Create your own customized e-reference shelf, choosing from resources such as:

CDs and online song purchases
Download three free songs per week from the Sony Music Library with  Freegal Music
Travel guides to plan your next vacation
Read e-book travel guides collected in Gale Virtual Reference Library (GVRL)