Faculty: This page contains resources to help you supplement your assigned texts with free/low-cost material, or transition your class completely to no- or low-cost readings. If you're thinking about creating your own text, there's information about that here as well. Your subject librarian can help you, too!
Switch to an Open/Low-Cost Textbook
There are many inexpensive or free, high-quality alternatives to traditional textbooks available to instructors. Open textbooks are created by disciplinary specialists—sometimes originally for use in their own courses, sometimes expressly for the purpose of filling a perceived need for high-quality, affordable instructional material.
George Mason University has developed a tool that will search across multiple databases of free and low-cost texts — enter your subject area and give it a try, or browse the separate resources listed below.
Below are some resources listing open textbooks and other educational materials. Check out the Amazon-style reviews of many of these resources to see other instructors' opinions - just click on the titles!
OER Collections: Textbooks
- British Columbia Open Campus Textbook listOffers access to hundreds of open textbooks available for use or modification.
- Cornell OpenProvides open access to new books and classic out-of-print titles.
- LibreTextsProvides access to collaboratively developed open textbooks. Focuses primarily on the sciences but there are some social sciences and humanities materials.
- MERLOT: Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching - California State UniversityA curated collection of free and open online teaching, learning, and faculty development services contributed and used by an international education community
- MIT OpenCourseWare Online TextbooksMIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a web-based publication of most MIT course content. OCW is freely available for use.
- NCBI Bookshelf - National Institute of HealthFree online access to books and documents in life science and healthcare, from the National Center for Biotechnology Information.
- NOBA textbooksTextbooks compiled from Noba modules for common courses. Textbooks can be customized to fit users' needs.
- NYU Press Open SquareNYU Press’s platform for publishing and reading open access books
- OpenStax CollegeProvides peer-reviewed textbooks in a growing range of subject areas. Digital copies are free or low-cost printed copies can be purchased.
- Open SUNY textbooksA service that provides access to a broad array of open textbooks to help incorporate OER into the classroom.
- Open Textbooks for EngineeringThis guide aggregates links to open (freely available) textbooks from ~20 different open educational resource websites and organizes it by engineering discipline.
- Open Textbook LibraryA directory of open textbooks in many disciplines. Some of the textbooks feature Amazon-style reviews from faculty.
- PDXOpenAn open access textbook publishing project supporting Portland State faculty who create open access textbooks. Textbooks are freely available for use.
- Penn State University Press UnlockedAn open access initiative offering humanities and social sciences titles
- Virginia Tech Open TextbooksThese open textbooks are free and licensed for redistribution. Some open textbooks are also licensed for modification.
- Wikibooks - Wikimedia FoundationProvides access to a little over 3,000 open access textbooks. Anyone is able to edit content.
OER Collections: Teach Without Textbooks
- OER CommonsOER Commons is a digital library of open educational resources available to the public.
- Galileo Open Learning Materials - University System of GeorgiaThis platform brings together open educational resources from the University System of Georgia, including open textbooks and ancillary materials.
OER Collections: Move Beyond Text
- HippoCampusHippoCampus.org offers free multimedia content such as videos, animations, and simulations on general education subjects to middle-school and high-school teachers and college professors and students.
- Phet: Interactive Simulations for Science and MathThis project at the University of Colorado Boulder creates free interactive math and science simulations.
- Creative Commons SearchFind free content in the public domain and under Creative Commons licenses.
- Simulations and Virtual LabsList of mostly open and free interactive resources across multiple STEM disciplines: engineering, life sciences, medicine and health sciences, physical sciences and mathematics, and social and behavioral sciences. Compiled by Colorado School of Mines.
Use the Library's E-Books as Textbooks
Did you know that the library holds over 500,000 licensed e-books in a wide variety of disciplines? Many of these books permit unlimited simultaneous use, making them good options for assigned course readings.
Whether you have a specific book in mind or want to see what's available on a particular topic, the best place to start is Scholar OneSearch:
Search Scholar OneSearch
To filter your results so you see only e-books, choose "e-Books" under Filter My Results.
When you find a book that interests you, click on the Online Access link. If access to the e-book is limited to one or a few simultaneous users, this information will be listed:
While you can certainly still assign a reading from this book to your students, they may have to wait their turn to access it - just like if it were a physical copy on reserve in the library. But an e-book that doesn't mention limited access will not have this problem. (Interested in seeing if it's possible to increase the number of simultaneous users for a book you've found? Contact your subject librarian!)
Another place you can start your search is our Books & E-Books Directory, which is browsable as an A-Z list of our major e-book packages, or you can limit the list to specific disciplines.
To link to an e-book in Canvas or other site or email, you will need a "permalink" — a URL that is not tied to a specific search session. Click here for our guide to Finding and Creating Permalinks.
There are many e-books in the public domain, too - check out the Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg for millions of texts.