Although NU’s Books for Cats program helps low-income students borrow course materials free of charge, Z-Library provided free access to every student regardless of financial situation. The average annual cost for one student’s books and supplies at the University is $1,590, according to Northwestern Undergraduate Financial Aid. That’s just one less barrier to getting your degree.”

“And websites like (Z-Library) make it easier to access books. “Education is already extremely expensive,” Carris said. Weinberg sophomore Ben Carris said NU’s cost of admission warrants greater financial support to help students access textbooks. The website’s popularity grew on TikTok, where #zlibrary has 19 million views.įor Northwestern students, Z-Library became a platform to freely download books and articles for class, similar to websites like Library Genesis and Sci-Hub. Z-Library contained more than 8 million books and 84 million articles, according to a report by the Authors Guild, a nonprofit organization that defends authors’ copyrights and free speech. Within the past few days, Z-Library was relaunched on another domain.Įspino said she was disappointed about Z-Library’s takedown.

But now, when opening Z-Library’s homepage, users are met with a message reading, “This website has been seized.” The website was also previously banned in France and India. Z-Library was a “shadow library” providing users with free access to books and other written materials. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York took down the online book piracy website. 4, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Nobody here actually pays for them.’”īut on Nov. “Then somebody told me, ‘Girl, don’t pay for your books. “I was complaining about paying $300 for my books,” Espino said. Medill freshman Josefina Espino began using Z-Library to download textbooks for free as soon as she got to campus.

Websites like zlibrary