Library Resource Guides: eBooks: Open Access eBooks

Open Access eBooks - Introduction

There are an increasing number of open access eBooks available. Freely available eBooks may be presented in a variety of formats and some may require special software to view. Remember to check licensing, conditions of use and/or copyright restrictions on individual titles before use.

Knowledge Unlatched

CSU Library is proud to support an international scheme making scholarly books freely available online. This project, known as Knowledge Unlatched, has so far enabled hundreds of books to become "unlatched", making them available to anyone, anywhere in the world. These titles are available via Primo Search, to locate them simply run a search using topic keywords, author, or title and the phrase "Knowledge unlatched".

For more information, including titles that have been made available please visit Knowledge Unlatched

The Library Minute: Open Access

The Library Minute: Open Access (1min 5sec)

Video above, produced by Arizona State University, discusses open access & research.

CRO

CRO (CSU Research Output) is the University's Institutional Repository, which lists all of the CSU research publications since 2006. An increasing number of book chapters are becoming available through CRO. These can be located by searching CRO.

Open Access Collections - General

Directory of Open Access Books
Search engine designed to increase the discoverability of Open Access books

Digital Public Library of America - DPLA
Access to digitised content of American libraries, archives and museums, including book titles.
Google Books
Provides access to previews of some titles and full text of many titles that are not copyrighted.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
A partnership of academic and research institutions, offering access to titles digitized from libraries around the world.
JSTOR
Thousands of Open Access titles from publishers such as University of California Press, NYU Press and the RAND Corporation.
OAPEN
Open access scholarly book collection.
Project Gutenberg
Access to 54 000 titles, includes many older titles that are no longer copyrighted.

Open Access Collections - Australian

ANU Press
Selection of electronic versions of scholarly books published by ANU Press.
Project Gutenberg Australia
Access to books in the public domain in Australia, 3700 titles available.
Trove
The National Library of Australia's Trove collection enables access to a digitised collection of content from libraries, museums and other research organisations. It includes significant Australian works such as John Gould's "The mammals of Australia".
University of Adelaide Press
Publisher of scholarly books, many are freely available online in PDF format.
UTS ePress
Digital, open access scholarly publishing arm of the University of Technology Sydney (UTS).

Open Access Collections - Humanities, Social Sciences & Arts

Bartleby
Access to thousands of free online classics including reference, literature and nonfiction.
Classical Chinese Literature
Access to Chinese classics with each character hyperlinked to its definition and etymology.
Classic Literature Library
Access to classics including the works of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Edgar Allan Poe.
Gallica
Access to thousands of books from the Bibliotheque National de France - mostly in French.
Literature Project
Collection of classic books, poems, speeches and plays.
Open SUNY Textbooks
Initiative established by the State University of New York.
Oxford Text Archive
Collection of literary and linguistic resources.

Open Access Collections - Science & Technology

Botanicus
Access to freely available historic botanical literature from the Missouri Botanical Garden Library.
InTechOpen
Science, Technology and Medicine open access book publisher.
National Academies Press - NAP
The NAP was created by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences. They provide access to thousands of titles on a wide range of topics in science, engineering and medicine.
NCBI Bookshelf
Free online access books from the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Library of Medicine (NLM).
O'Reilly Open Books Project
Access to a collection of computer science titles.