13 Places to Find Free Textbooks
OpenStax
OpenStax is a Rice university’s non-profit educational technology-free textbooks initiative developed in 2012. The program publishes peer-reviewed, high-quality, and openly licensed free textbooks for college students. And at a low cost when they print the material.
The platform works by providing different formats of OpenStax books for easy and convenient access. For instance, free textbooks PDF formats that allow you to access content online for free, or in a downloaded form by paying a small fee (depending on the material, for more information, contact OpenStax support). You can also use your free mobile app (OpenStax +SE) to access the content.
With all these options, you can find the best that suits your lifestyle and needs. What is remaining is for you to head straight to the organization’s home page and hit the “Get started now” button.
Library Genesis
Library Genesis is a file-sharing-based shadow platform that allows users access to free textbooks, academic works, scholarly journal articles, and e-Books, etc., for free.
The platform’s updated guide instructs you on how you can navigate the platform.
For instance, it provides you with information regarding:
- How to find a book in the library
- The recommended and not recommended Mirrors to use
- And the alternative links you can use to access the library
For example:
- https://www.google.com/search?q=library+genesis+proxy&pws=0&gl=us&gws_rd=cr
- https://www.google.com/search?q=library+genesis+mirror&pws=0&gl=us&gws_rd=cr
- https://www.reddit.com/r/libgen/
Once on the website’s home page you can access your favorite books from the provided categories on top of the page. That is the download, upload, last, others, and topics categories. Click on the one that best fits what you’re looking for.
And then follow through the provided drop-down menu for more options, instructions, and actions.
Scholarworks Free Textbooks
Scholarworks is a shared institutional database that gathers stores and gives access to research done by the California State University community. In essence, it allows access to free university textbooks, as well as other research posted by the community.
As such, you’ll get the following material upon searching the repository:
- Dissertations & Theses: which comprise of final assignments done by PhD students at the university.
- Faculty Publications: These constitute sets of journals published by the University departments.
- Research Datasets: which comprise sets of data gathered by the University students and community.
The site also allows you to freely share your intellectual property and that of your CSU peers with the global audience.
To share your work, simply click the “Share Your Work button” just below the search dialogue box.
Bookboon Free Textbooks
Bookboon is a web-based organization specializing in the publication of student e-books in IT, engineering, and business. Not only that, but the site also publishes practical short books for business students.
The platform allows you to download more than 1000 free textbooks. And what’s more, you can download them in PDF format without registering.The company has recently launched its Bookboon Youtube channel to make things even easier for you. For instance, it provides you with information about the available books according to topics. So that, you can concentrate on other important issues; for instance, communication and project management.
PDF Search Engine Free Textbooks
PDF Search Engine is a free textbooks site that supports the downloading of DOC, PDF, and e-book resources.
On the platform’s homepage, you’ll see that you have about 512,727,964 free PDF books and files to choose from. However in different formats; for instance, TXT files, RTF files, Word Files, CHM File and PDF files.
A search of a title on the site will output the result in the format you’ll select. And thereafter you’ll then decide to download it or read it online.
Open Textbook Library
Open Textbook Library is a database collection of more than 700 free Textbooks available in an electronic form. The books are openly licensed with a creative commons. Therefore, they can be hosted, uploaded, displayed, or modified without permission, fee, or requiring a fair use analysis.
Although most of the collections will lead you to the same books, each one has unique items inside them. The platform also provides you with a list of free textbooks that aren’t technically open. For instance, those that can be “free online”; however are subject to copyright laws or may require a small fee to access.
Open textbooks are books under an open copyright license; therefore, members of the public, teachers ,and students can freely access them.
Free Kids Books
Free Kids Books is an online database collection containing children’s picture books with a reading length of between 10 and 20 minutes.
It constitutes one of the best sites to download books for your kids since other major sites such as OpenStax, Scholarworks and Library Genesis, etc., concentrate on scholarly work.
Upon opening the website, you’ll find out that the books are categorized according to different criteria.
For instance:
- Publisher
- Author
- Grade
- Foreign language
- Age group
- ESL English Level
- Subject
- All
Therefore, you need to select your category before proceeding to the search stage.
You can also sort out the books depending on your target audience. For example, material for young adults, older children, children, toddlers, or all ages. Or by considering how popular a book is or the date of publication.
Textbooksfree
Textbooksfree is another online repository that stores high school homeschooling free textbooks for a variety of disciplines. For instance, course materials and book summaries, among other resources.
To download textbooks for free from the platform, you simply:
- Visit the website’s home page
- And then click on the category you want from the choices provided
Examples of categories you can select your free textbooks from including the following:
| Political economy | Accounting |
|---|---|
| Health | libraries |
| Covid-19 updates and fake news | Lifestyles |
| Earnings | Career basis |
| Public | Biographies |
Saylor.org Free Textbooks
Saylor.org is a non-profit open online academy that offers free courses to those interested in learning at their own pace.
To enroll as a student, you first need to create an account, enroll in a course, and start learning at your speed.
Upon registration, you’ll be directed to a home page, where you can learn more about the organization and the courses it provides. On completion of your course, you can be given a free certificate issued through the platform’s partner Accredible.
You can connect your college credits with Saylor academy courses in the following ways:
- Taking credit recommended Saylor Academy exams
- Taking third party exams on the platform
- Participating in partner programs
Betterworldbooks.com
Betterworldbooks.com is a US-based business specializing in the sale of new and used books. The platform was developed by the students of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, in 2002. It offers reasonable prices for the textbooks, as well as free shipping on everything.
Upon successful registration of an account with the platform, you’ll be able to access the following resources:
- Donated books from colleges
- College book drives and libraries
You can then select whatever book suits you from the collection and purchase it at a subsidised price.
After ordering your book, your registered account will subsequently provide you with information regarding your order status.
Lastly, you can include a wishlist in your account to help you keep track of the books you’re interested in.
Mobilism
Mobilism is a huge American-based index that allows users to share books, apps, and games via their mobile phones. Apart from that, the site requires those who wish to contribute their material to index it at the website’s address. Doing so allows other users to download the uploaded content for free and without registration.
To get started, you can download the Mobilism APK for android using this link.
Archive.org
Archive.org is a non-profit repository for millions of free textbooks, software, movies, websites, music, etc. since its inception in 2001; more than 452 million pages have found their way into the Archive.
The platform allows you to read textbooks online and perform a free online book download at your own time or convenience.
You can find websites to download books by just entering a URL to interact and view previous versions of a website stored in the Archive. All these can be done although the site no longer stays on the “live” web.
You don’t need to register for you to use the platform since most of its content is public. Therefore you can freely download or stream its content.
However, signing up for an account with the site—which is free—will unlock a few extra features.
For instance:
- API access for software integration and bulk downloading and uploading
- Personal web archive you can use to populate the Wayback Machine with new sites
- Access to more than 1.3 million contemporary e-Books which registered users can borrow from free textbook websites
VK.Com
VK.Com is a community dedicated eBook library book lovers yearning for their next read. Users can visit the site to download free textbooks in non-fiction disciplines, such as history, languages, self-development, and psychology.
For you to use the site, you must first sign-up. Then login into your account to read the e-books online, share them or even download them for later consumption.
