Download the books
- 9,700 files
- About 3 GB
- Free GitHub account
The connector lets you search the library from your AI app. If you'd rather have the books themselves on your own computer, you can download a single book or the whole library.
What you get
- About 4,600 works in 9,700 files. Each book is a Markdown file: plain text with simple formatting, which opens in any text editor and in note apps such as Obsidian.
- About 3 GB for the whole library, once unzipped.
- Long books are split into parts. Open the file without "Part" in its name: it links to each part.
- Every file names its source and license at the top, so you can see which edition you are reading.
Getting access
The books are shared by invitation, through GitHub, so this part needs a free GitHub account. (The AI connector doesn't: anyone can set that up with an email address.)
- Make a free account at github.com.
- Ask for an invitation with the request form. The form is public, so leave out private details.
- Accept the invitation in the email from GitHub.
Download one book
- Look the book up in the catalog. Search for one distinctive word, such as Baxter, since old titles are spelled in many ways. Note the Folder column.
- Open that folder in the library and click the book.
- Choose Download raw file, at the top right.
Download the whole library
- Open the library.
- Choose Code › Download ZIP.
- Unzip it.
To get books added later, download it again. Or, to keep it up to date: install GitHub Desktop, choose Code › Open with GitHub Desktop on the library's page, and later choose Fetch origin, then Pull origin, to get new books.
Reading them in Obsidian
Drag the library folder into your vault, or open it as its own vault with Open folder as vault. For a long book, open the note without "Part" in its name: it links to each part.
What you may do with them
- Most books are in the public domain. Read them, quote them, print them and share them.
- Texts from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library may be quoted and used freely, as long as the files are not sold.
- The Greek and Latin texts from the Open Greek and Latin Project are licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. If you share them, credit the project and share them under the same license.
Questions? Write to hello@christianopenlibrary.org.