Welcome to your library.

1000s

of original books in the palm of your hand

100s

of contributing authors and illustrators around the world

130,000

people are now reading our library

Library For All’s free digital and print library contains hundreds of expertly curated books with stories and pictures sourced from authors and illustrators around the world. These are specifically created to meet the needs of children in destinations where history, poverty or remoteness limit the community’s ability to access quality reading material. Books are both culturally relevant and age appropriate providing children with stories and themes they can readily understand and engage with.

Below is a sample of the books we produce, you can also download our catalogue here.

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How the library works.

Library For All’s cloud based, digital library platform is designed for use in low bandwidth environments and optimised for offline reading. It has been designed for a variety of low cost devices, such as tablets, mobile phones and PCs.

Our digital library tracks user demographics, number of books read and number of pages turned. These analytics help us to improve the content and user-experience of the Library.

Library For All does not provide hardware, but works in collaboration, tapping into the expert knowledge of development organisations, educators and community representatives to identify devices that exist in-country and customise our platform accordingly.

How we produce a book.

  • Step 1

    We source original stories from experienced and emerging writers around the world.

  • Step 2

    We select the stories that best suit our checklist for quality and age appropriateness.

  • Step 3

    Each story undergoes a cultural audit, using our global network of advisors in the countries we serve.

  • Step 4

    The story then undergoes structural and copy editing, ensuring accuracy of content, spelling and grammar.

  • Step 5

    We engage an illustrator we know is well suited to the narrative and work with them to bring the story to life.

  • Step 6

    The final manuscript and illustrations move to our digital layout team for conversion into epubs and print-ready books.

  • Final step

    We share our unique, diverse library of books with readers around the world.

  • We publish more than 500 original books every year.

Growing our collection.

Sourcing Authors

Our library books are created by volunteers, experienced authors and in-country projects. We work with educators and development organisations to run writers’ workshops around the world. This ensures our educational content is relevant to local readers. We believe young readers deserve books that mirror their life experiences, enhancing their interest in reading and storytelling.

Editing Our Books

The stories sourced from our worldwide pool of authors are edited by Library For All to ensure the content is high quality, interesting to young readers, and relevant to local educational curriculum needs.  Each book will also be shown to an expert advisory panel with knowledge of local cultures and extensive publishing industry experience.

Matching with Illustrators

When the story text is ready for publication, we match it with an illustrator, photographer or picture researcher to bring out the best in the words with colourful, engaging imagery.

Creating an ePub

Our books are produced in several formats. We ask our digital publishing teams to create beautifully designed epubs for use in our Library For All app, as well as print-ready versions. We meet the needs of the world’s most remote small schools, libraries or community spaces and ensure our library reaches them in a format they can access.

QA Testing

Our technical development team conducts rigorous QA testing of every book before it becomes part of our library. Technical frustrations should not impede people’s desire to read, so our books are checked for download speed, image quality and readability.

Adding to the library

Finally, we take great pride in adding completed books to our library ‘back end’, which then makes them available to ALL via our app. Users can search by language, topic of interest or reading level, using any Android device. We do not specialise in hardware, but we do work with experts on the ground in communities to integrate our library into class sets of devices or print on demand copies.

Our team of creative content collaborators.

Along with books from our unique, in-house publishing program, our library in each country includes content licensed or donated from:

  • Major international publishers
  • Local publishers
  • NGOs & governments
  • Open Educational Resources
  • World literature
  • Reference materials

We believe that opening access to educational resources is key to development and, when permissions allow, we will contribute any content or translations generated by our staff and community as open educational resources under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY NC ND) license.

Library For All has partnered with leading distributors to deliver publisher content to our readers in a secure, automated fashion. We protect IP through a digital rights management (DRM) system, so international publishers can distribute their content freely on the Library without fear of piracy. The Library includes an analytics system for gathering reader data and monitoring effectiveness long-term. Since our Library is cloud-based, a publisher can add to, delete or update the settings on a single book or an entire list of books in our Library at any time.

Stay in the loop.

Sign up to thrive – our inspirational monthly supporter update.

Each month we share stories from the field, our latest work and your contributions.

Help us put books in the hands of millions of children around the world.

Building knowledge starts with a strong foundation

Give the gift of reading to 250 children by donating a Foundation Kit to a school in Papua New Guinea. Each Foundation Kit contains 100 curated printed books specifically developed to build a strong foundation for a love of reading in school aged children while meeting their cultural and academic needs.

You can purchase a life changing Foundation Kit for just $498.65

Learn more

Donate a small amount each month

For less than a monthly Spotify subscription you can help us put books in the hands of children who need it most. Just $14.95 a month will help us deliver programs in Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste and Laos. There’s no fixed term and you can cancel at anytime.

Learn more

What’s in a Foundation Kit?

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Every Foundation Kit has 100 gorgeous full colour and expertly curated printed books just like these.

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Library For All books are developed to suit a broad range of reader ability. We have a range of levels to suit children at all reading abilities. The book Mikey and Billy’s Secret Place is a level 3 book developed for children who can read longer sentences and more complex vocabulary for progressing readers.

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All Library For All books are printed using sustainable and ethically sourced paper.

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To ensure our library has a diverse world view, we work with a global contributor network of more than 350 individuals in 16 countries on 5 continents.

Library For All has been expanding rapidly. Every year we are seeing hundreds of new titles landing in thousands of new hands. It’s humbling to be involved in an organisation which is making such a tangible difference in these children’s lives.

Glenn ScottChair Library For All

Sustainability in action

Did you know we create global impact by embracing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.