Free to read.
Free to be here.
Sinen builds libraries in Ethiopian schools. The Digital Library brings the same idea online: good books, free for anyone, in the languages children speak at home.
The library holds 26 published books. Every one has been through the rights check below.
How a book gets on the shelf
- Found. Books come from sources that publish open licenses and official catalogs. Our import tools read those catalogs; they never scrape around paywalls, logins or download limits.
- Pending review. Each book starts in a review queue with its source, license and credits recorded.
- Rights verified. The license is checked against the book itself — for example, the license stated by the publisher must match the license printed inside the file. Anything unclear is held for a person to review.
- Approved, then published. Only then is the file hosted here. If a license is unclear, we don't host the file at all.
Every step is logged: who reviewed a book, when, and on what evidence.
Where the books come from
| Source | Rights | What we do |
|---|---|---|
| Project Gutenberg | Public domain in the U.S. | We add only books whose authors, translators and illustrators all died more than 70 years ago, so they are also public domain in Ethiopia and most countries. Files are served unchanged, with the license they carry. |
| Bloom Library (SIL) | Creative Commons, chosen by each publisher | We check each book's license in the catalog and inside the book. NonCommercial licenses suit Sinen, which never charges for books. NoDerivatives books are shared exactly as published. |
| StoryWeaver (Pratham Books) | Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 | Titles in Amharic and Afaan Oromo are being reviewed; files are added once we have authorised access to them. |
Free to read is not the same as free to republish. Books that are free online but not openly licensed — such as government textbooks — are linked, not copied.
Creative Commons, honestly
Not all Creative Commons licenses are the same, and each book page says exactly what its license allows: whether you may share it, adapt or translate it, or use it commercially, and how to credit it. We add no restrictions of our own: if a license lets you download and share a book, the download button is there.
Privacy
No one needs an account to read. We count how often books are opened, downloaded and searched for, by month and country — never by person. We don't store IP addresses, names or reading histories. Bookmarks and reading positions stay on your own device.
Report a problem or a copyright concern
If you hold rights in a book here and believe it should not be shared, or you spot a wrong credit or detail, tell us. We review every report, record what we decide, and take a book down while a copyright complaint is checked.