Research Guides: Alternative Textbooks (Open Educational Resources): Find Alt Textbooks

Select Publishers of Alternative Textbooks (Open Educational Resources)

OpenStax
This non-profit organization based at Rice University publishes free peer-reviewed textbooks written by professional content developers. It has created subject-related hubs for instructors to share teaching resources.
Open SUNY Textbooks
Established by State University of New York libraries, this initiative publishes a growing list of peer-reviewed open access textbooks.
University System of Georgia Open Textbooks
With the facilitation of Affordable Learning Georgia, openly licensed textbooks on different subjects have been published by the University System of Georgia. Ancillary materials are also available.
Portland State University Open Access Textbooks
This is a collection of free, openly licensed textbooks published by the Portland State University Library.
Grand Valley State University Open Textbooks
These free textbooks are authored by faculty members at the Grand Valley State University.
College of the Canyons Zero Textbook Cost (ZTC) Textbooks
This page provides access to open textbooks made available by the College of the Canyons, including some specializing in water technology.
BCcampus OpenEd
Founded in British Columbia, this site offers a variety of openly licensed textbooks for undergraduate studies.
Saylor Academy Open Textbooks
Saylor Academy hosts a collection of openly licensed textbooks and open online courses.
Lumen Learning's Catalog
This page lists Lumen Learning's free online courses and the accompanying textbooks.

Select Sources of Free Monographs

Directory of Open Access Books
This resource indexes peer-reviewed academic books in different languages published by over 100 publishers.

OAPEN Library
University presses and publishers from different countries have made their scholarly monographs in Humanities and Social Sciences freely downloadable through the OAPEN Library.

MIT Press Open
The MIT Press provides free downloads of monographs on a wide range of subjects.
National Academies Press (NAP)
Established by the National Academy of Sciences, NAP publishes on a wide array of topics in science, engineering, and medicine.
University Press of Kentucky (UPK) Books
More than 1,000 titles published by UPK are freely accessible to the faculty and students of the University of Kentucky via UKnowledge.
UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004
Hundreds of books published by the University of California Press are freely accessible through this portal.
OpenEdition Books
OpenEdition features open access books in the humanities and social sciences published in different European languages.
SciELO Livros
SciELO Livros publishes online academic books written in Spanish and Portuguese.
CLACSO Libros
Supported by the Latin American Council of Social Sciences, CLACSO Libros provides free access to academic books from Latin American countries and other continents.

HathiTrust Digital Library
Thousands of out-of-copyright books digitized by academic libraries are available via HathiTrust.
Requires linkblue login at the HathiTrust site.

Project Gutenburg
Project Gutenberg includes literary and other intellectual works in many languages.
unglue.it: Free Books
This page from unglue.it aggregates books that are distributed with an open license or are in the public domain.

Indexes and Repositories of Free Educational Materials

OpenStax CNX
Operating out of Rice University, this repository carries both books and learning objects that are freely accessible online.
COOL4ed: Find FREE and OPEN eTextbooks
People can use this tool to find free and open textbooks from different sources. They can also enter the ISBN of a book to find related free textbooks.
Open Oregon: Educational Resources
This list shows what Oregon community college instructors have used to replace commercial textbooks. Those resources might be suitable for similar courses at other institutions.
WAC Clearinghouse
Supported by Colorado State University, the WAC Clearinghouse enables "scholarly exchange about communication across the disciplines."
SkillsCommon
This repository holds free and open learning materials for "job-driven workforce development." The materials were developed by community colleges across the US.
Wisc-Online
Maintained by Fox Valley Technical College, this portal provides access to learning objects in the fields of health, science, mathematics, technology, and general education.
College Open Textbooks
This initiative aims to promote the adoption of open textbooks among community colleges and for the first two years (lower division) of universities.
OpenLearn Subjects
Powered by The Open University, this site divides thousands of free online learning resources into eight broad categories.
Open Learning Initiative Independent Learner Courses
The Open Learning Initiative provides free learning materials about languages and STEM subjects.
Teaching Commons
Maintained by Berkeley Electronic Press, this resource aggregates free textbooks and educational materials made available by higher education institutions.
2012 Book Archive
This is an archive of openly licensed entry-level college textbooks.
Open Culture
This site indexes a variety of cultural and educational materials, including textbooks, eBooks, audio books, and movies.
The Orange Grove
As Florida's repository of open educational resources, it holds openly licensed materials for higher education, vocational education, and continuing education.
PLOS Collections
The Public Library of Science (PLOS) has curated collections of peer-reviewed journal articles on a variety of topics for research and educational purposes.
CORE
CORE is a free service that facilitates searches for and access to millions of open access research papers.
BASE (Bielefeld Academic Search Engine)
Operated by Bielefeld University Library in Germany, BASE indexes academic resources that are freely accessible online.
Paperity
This is a multidisciplinary index of open access journal articles that can be reused for research and educational purposes.