Many books on Wakefield history already included
The Internet Archive is a non-profit organization founded in 1996 to create an online digital library and preserve it for future historians as well as current users. The archive currently contains well over a million books, as well as extensive collections of media such as newsreels, advertising, cartoons, music, radio shows, and more. There is even an archive of periodic historical snapshots of the Web, preserved for the future. Materials in the archive, mostly published prior to the 1920s, are in the public domain and can be used without restrictions.
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Library catalogs have changed a lot since the 19th century days when they were actually published as bound books, or even more recently as drawers of heavily thumbed file cards. NOBLE’s online catalog, with more than three million items from 28 libraries, offers fast, convenient access to readers and researchers via the Internet, and allows people to manage their own library accounts as well. This month, NOBLE has added even more useful content to the catalog with the addition of LibraryThing.
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Online at NOBLE’s Digital Library

Winter arrived in Wakefield with a bang this year, bringing eighteen inches of snow. Griping about winter weather often leads to reminiscing about winters past, the enjoyable sparkling white ones as well as the dreary snowbound ones.
You can enhance your reminiscing with a nice selection of historic winter photographs in a new winter exhibit that is online in the North of Boston Library Exchange (NOBLE) Digital Library.

Wakefield Square, from an early 20th century postcard.

NOBLE’s Digital Library is a collection of more than 2,500 historic images contributed by libraries in the NOBLE network, including Wakefield. The pictures are part of our network’s online catalog, but they can also be searched separately in this special catalog devoted solely to images. You can browse the collection by clicking on “Digital Library” in the top menu.
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Are you addicted to listening to audiobooks as you walk around the Lake, or on your commute to work?
Beebe Library is pleased to announce the availability of free downloadable audiobooks, provided by a company called OverDrive, and courtesy of our membership in the NOBLE network (North of Boston Library Exchange). The collection includes fiction and nonfiction for adults, teens and children. You can audiobooks out with your library card, and download them for two weeks. Then you can listen to the books on your PC, or transfer them to an MP3 player or iPod. Some titles can also be burned to a CD.
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