The Open Textbook movement focuses on the creation of books that are built specifically for use as free or low-cost options for education. Many of the collections will have links to the same books, but each repository has a particular focus, and items you can't find in other collections.
- StudySmarter (https://www.studysmarter.us/textbooks/).
- Open Textbook Library (https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/) – OTL, with over 350 books, is a clearinghouse of links to books in various locations, including OpenStax, Saylor and others. Books in the OTL have been peer reviewed for quality, and the Open Textbook Library has multiple criteria for inclusion in the Library.
- OpenStax (https://openstax.org/) – These books were developed following traditional textbook publishing methods, including peer review, editorial support, and creation of ancillary content. Books are available in multiple formats (PDF, print on demand, on the Web) and are licensed to be revised and remixed by faculty who want create a custom solution for a course.
- Note: Several faculty members at OU have adopted or adapted OpenStax books, including Dean Kelly Damphousse, Glen Kurtz, Heather Ketchum, and others.
- Pressbooks Directory - it provides an index of 5,101 books published across 144 Pressbooks networks. It is more powerful when paired with Pressbooks Create, which allows you to clone, revise, remix, and redistribute all of the openly licensed content found through this Directory.
- BC Campus OpenEd (open.bccampus.ca/find-open-textbooks) – This site includes texts written specifically for the BC OpenTextbook initiative, as well as books from other sources.
- Lumen Learning (https://lumenlearning.com/) – Lumen provides open courses in a variety of high-demand subjects and disciplines. These courses are collections of high-quality OER, not necessarily as a traditional textbook. You can use them as-is or modify them to fit your instructional style and students’ needs.
- Milne Open Books: Milne Library Publishing at SUNY Geneseo manages and maintains Milne Open Textbooks, a catalog of open textbooks authored and peer-reviewed by SUNY faculty and staff.
- HathiTrust (http://www.hathitrust.org) – HathiTrust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. HathiTrust materials can be searched through the OU Libraries.
- The Directory of OpenAccess Books (http://www.doabooks.org/doab) – This site is a clearinghouse of links to books hosted in various locations, and includes a large selection of international textbooks.
- Saylor.org Bookshelf (http://www.saylor.org/books/) – This collection includes books written specifically for Saylor.org as well as the original editions of the FlatWorldKnowledge textbooks (subsequent editions are only offered for purchase). You can view all their resources by subject area in their library.
- LibreTexts: The LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of open educational resources (OER) to reduce the burdens of unreasonable text book costs to our students and society.
- Library Genesis: It is a "shadow library. The website boasts millions of journal articles and over a hundred thousand books found that are typically only available through costly academic journals. To download a PDF textbook, all you need to do is enter your search query, either by the author's name, the subject, or book title in the search box and click on the textbook you want to download.
- ScholarWorks: Best for range of search methods to find free college textbooks easily. It has a collection of works by Grand Valley State University scholars and is maintained by GVSU itself. Users can search college textbooks PDFs across title, author, citation, keywords, etc.
- Open Access Publishing in European Networks (http://www.oapen.org/home) – The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences. OAPEN has books in multiple languages and covering a large variety of topics. There is a range of licensing for the books, but each books is clearly marked with the license.
- Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page) – A volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works. Most items in this collection are digitized works from the public domain, making it a rich source for those in the Humanities
- The National Academies Press (http://www.nap.edu) – Unlike some of the open textbook initiatives these books are publicly available but not openly licensed. You can link to the content, and even link directly to specific pages. However, you cannot remix and redistribute the content.
You may also choose to explore an option that is closer to home:
Open SUNY Textbooks is an open access textbook publishing initiative established by State University of New York libraries and supported by SUNY Innovative Instruction Technology Grants. This pilot initiative publishes high-quality, cost-effective course resources by engaging faculty as authors and peer-reviewers, and libraries as publishing service and infrastructure.
