NB Bookshelf

The NB Bookshelf Library is a collection of over 200 public domain books in both TXT and PDF formats. It is available via download for $19 (price subject to change), and can be ordered on the secure order form at www.notabene.com. The works that are included are classics from the western literary tradition and have been selected from the American Library Association's reading checklists for college students and university course syllabi for undergraduate degree programs. Titles include works by Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Dickens, Hawthorne, Aristotle and many more. Click here for a list of the texts included.

The PDF versions are formatted for easy reading. The TXT versions can be opened in Nota Bene, and they are searchable by Orbis.

Install: If you have purchased via download, two files will be available for you to download, bks-nb.exe (approximately 73 MB) and bks-pdf.exe (over 200 MB). Save these files on your computer (remember the folder where you save them) and double-click on bks-nb.exe to install the TXT versions and double-click on bks-pdf.exe to install the PDF versions.

Open files: Once installed, you can find the TXT versions in the NBBooks\texts1 folder on your hard drive, and you can find the PDF e-books in the NBBooks\ebooks folder. (If you chose different folders when you installed, browse to those folders instead.) If you want to open a book in Nota Bene, use the Nota Bene File Open dialog to browse to the NBBooks\texts1 folder and open the file that interests you. If you want to open a book in PDF format (formatted for easy reading), use My Computer or Windows Explorer to browse to the NBBooks\ebooks folder on your hard drive, and double-click on the PDF file that you want to open. (You must have the free Adobe Reader, and the PDF extension must be associated with Adobe Reader on your computer.)

Create an Orbis textbase: To search these files in Orbis, you should create an Orbis textbase, selecting all the files in the TEXTS1 folder (see above), and making sure that you select TXT files (or you could also select all files in this case, since all the files in that folder are TXT files) in the drop-down list in the Files Type pane at the upper right.

Search with Orbis: To use Orbis textbase to search all of the included works, start Nota Bene and click Tools, Orbis to open Orbis. Select the Orbis textbase you created from the dropdown list at top left of the Orbis screen. Type search terms in the Find box.

Backup: Once installed, there will be an NBBooks folder on your hard drive with three subfolders: texts1, ebooks and Orbis. If you keep a backup copy of this folder, it can be transferred to a new computer. You will need to recreate the Orbis textbase as described above.