Let’s face it: times are not getting less tough for students. When the price of a textbook that is published by a large, profit-driven corporation is factored into the baseline cost of an education, many find that they have to put off or even forgo college. Professors are in an even worse situation: how can they ethically ask cash-strapped young people to purchase books costing hundreds of dollars when those students are already paying thousands just to go to school?

Luckily, for every profit-motivated organization brazenly taking advantage of the system, the Internet spawns an open access textbook. Today, we’re going to run down some of the best open textbook resources available on the Internet. These textbooks are free to use, download, distribute and keep depending on their license. They’re written by experts, who are often themselves faculty at universities, and supported by institutions of higher education. And they’re there for the taking.

We’ve discussed the broken academic publishing system before on this blog. Based on our 2014 discussion with Dr. Mark Green, it seems that only professors themselves have a chance to change the system, either by self-publishing, open publishing, or by choosing to use open access textbooks in the classroom.

So here we are, professors: a list of resources to get you started! This isn’t everything that’s out there - not by a long shot. But it’s a start. Let’s begin that revolution.

FreeTechBooks

What’s this? Oh, just a repository of 812 completely free computer science books. No biggie.

Actually, what am I saying? It’s hugely useful and definitely the biggest repository on this list. From A Beginner’s C++ to Notes on the Course of Algorithms, you can find something about pretty much everything computer-related here. Authors and author web pages are included in each book’s record. Unsurprisingly, many of the contributors hail from institutions of higher learning. Then you have your usual lineup of Google software engineers, startup kids, and Zen Buddhist monks. (And, of course, the American Library Association.) Licenses vary from book to book and download buttons link to the titles’ hosting sites. They’re not all actually downloadable per se - some are just old text and hyperlink web sites from 1997—but hey, they’re free.

The Florida Orange Grove

Florida is famous for the many wacky hijinks of its citizens, and justly so. But even as we laugh at the Panhandle State, let us also admire its expansive, robust repository of educational materials for all ages. Each item in the Orange Grove may be reviewed and commented upon by users, giving this platform the sense of being well-used and lively. The 115 K-12 open textbooks are excellent, full-text resources encompassing subjects as diverse as Concepts in Calculus I and Gender and the Chivalric Community in Malory’s Morte d’Arthur. Better yet, they’re all hosted on the Orange Grove site and downloadable in PDF format. Books in the more numerous InTech category, on the other hand … well, let’s just say that not everything on this site is totally free. However. If you stick to the K-12 section, you’ll find plenty of good material.

OpenStax College

One thing I really love about OpenStax is how damn pretty their e-books are. Look at them! They look like candy! Makes me want to go back and study trigonometry again. (And eat a bag of Skittles.) The other advantage of OpenStax is the straightforward nature of the textbooks: these are basic core subjects like college physics and US history. They are all, to a book, written by professors. Rice University supports OpenStax, so there you go. Unlike many other open publications, the textbooks hosted here are peer reviewed. So what if there are only twenty-two of them? Quality-wise, they may as well be made of gold. The highly polished website hosts multiple options for download, including iTunes and PDF, and though OpenStax may bug you for donations, all of their books are available for free even if you don’t want to spend five bucks.

Open Textbook Library

Here’s another platform with a rating system, university-backed free books, and a snazzy website. It’s also fairly large and gives you a bit of a bird’s eye view of the open textbook world. Open Textbook Library collects about 210 open textbooks from various academic sources all over the web, including New York University, Duke, and even Harvard. The common ground between them all is that they come from reliable places, and a quick search can bring you to a textbook of your desired provenance. OpenStax is present here, too, and is exceedingly easy to spot thanks to the pretty, pretty covers.

There’s more, of course. This is the Internet: there’s always more. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the open textbook libguide at the University of Mary Washington, or the intrepid professors who are actually integrating these books into their curriculae at UMass Amherst and Northwestern Michigan College. Seriously, let’s put those educators’ names in lights. It’s people like that, who take a chance in the name of universal access and empathy for the underdog, who make it possible for everyone to go back to school.

Anna Call is a reference librarian at the Nevins Memorial Library in Methuen, Massachusetts. Follow her on Twitter @evil_librarian.

Anna Call
September 1, 2016

• Share
• 
• 
• 
• 
• Copy URL