Library Guides: Affordable Textbooks and Open Educational Resources: Open Textbook Sources

Open Textbook Sources

This page links to a number of different collections of open textbooks. The two boxes at the bottom of the page can be used to search for open textbooks and other open educational resources.

Open Textbook Library Titles in I-Share
The titles available through the Open Textbook Library have been loaded into I-Share. They can be found by clicking on this link or searching "Open Textbook Library" in I-Share.
Open Textbook Library (University of Minnesota)
The University of Minnesota oversees this library of open textbooks for a network of universities that are working to make openly accessible textbooks available. All textbooks in this library are complete and openly licensed. The site allows users to search for and link to open textbooks from a number of sources in multiple subject areas. Some textbooks are reviewed and starred similar to those on Amazon.
OpenStax (Rice University)
OpenStax College, an initiative of Rice University with sponsorship of a number of foundations, is a nonprofit organization that is working to improve student access to educational resources. The site has a collection of free textbooks that are developed and peer-reviewed by educators. The books available on the site are free.
MIT Open Courseware Online Textbooks
This page is an index to online textbooks in MIT OpenCourseWare. It provides links to resources organized by general subject area. The site includes links to open-licensed electronic versions of print books, self-published online books, and detailed course notes that can serve as an alternatives to conventional textbooks.
REBUS Community
The REBUS Community is a non-profit organization that is developing a new, collaborative process for publishing open textbooks and associated content. Instead of one author writing (and maintaining an open textbook) they are encouraging the collaborative development of open educational resources. They are developing tools and resources to support publication of open textbooks by bring community of faculty, librarians, students and others together.
BC Campus OpenEd Open Textbook Collection
The government of British Columbia is working to make education more accessible and affordable by funding and providing access to openly accessible textbooks.
National Academies Press
National Academies Press (NAP) publishes the reports of the Academies. NAP publishes more than 200 books a year on a variety of topics in science, engineering, and medicine. The information is authoritative and discusses important issues in science and health policy. The books are available online for free, although users must register to download content.
Bookboon
Bookboon.com focuses on publishing educational material for students and business professionals. In 2005, it started publishing online books and has since become a leading provider of free textbooks. Some textbooks are reviewed and starred similar to those on Amazon.
Country Studies
Country studies, which are prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, present descriptions and analyses of the history, society, economy, politics, national security systems and institutions of countries throughout the world. Some are also available in hard copy in Government Publications; they can be found by searching WestCat for the Country name in the Title and adding the words Country Study (keyword; all of these).
Directory of Open Access Books
The Directory contains information about openly accessible books on a wide variety of topics. Information about the books is provided by the publisher.
Internet Archive
A digital library that offers free universal access to books, movies & music, and over 150 billion archived web pages. It contains over 8 million books. Most of the books are older than 1923.
Cool4ED
A program of the California Higher Education Systems that provides easy access to free and open electronic textbooks that anyone can use for teaching and learning. It provides resources for various levels of higher education, including community colleges and 4-year institutions.
NOBA Project
"Noba is a free online platform that provides high-quality, flexibly structured textbooks and educational materials" related to psychology. "The textbooks and materials are licensed under the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 International License. Users can reuse, redistribute, and remix the content to suit their needs."
OER Commons
OER Commons can be used to search for open educational resources by type of material, general subject and "grade level" (Pre-School through College and beyond) and narrow searches by even more criteria. It provides access to over 50,000 open educational resources.
Open Course Library
The Open Course Library is a resource managed by the Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges. It is a collection of free-to-use course materials that can be downloaded and used for teaching. It focuses on general courses.
Open Education Consortium
The Open Education Consortium is a global network of educational institutions, people and organizations that support openness, collaborations, innovation, collective development, and use of open educational resources. Their Courses page contains a search box that can be used to find OERs on a particular topic.
Open Learning Initiative
The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) is a grant-funded initiative at Carnegie Mellon University, providing online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach. Their goal is to create high-quality courses and contribute original research to improve learning and transform higher education. It offers online courses to anyone who wants to learn or teach.

George Mason OER Metafinder

George Mason University has developed a metafinder that searches the leading repositories for Open Educational Resources. Users can search across all sites or search specific sites. Enter terms describing the information needed to find open educational resources on a topic.

OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search)

OASIS (Openly Available Sources Integrated Search)
A direct link to OASIS at SUNY Geneseo. This link allows users to limit the search results by type of resource needed.