Open Access (OA) is an international movement to make publications freely available in order to facilitate research, teaching and learning. Any person who can connect to the internet can access OA material freely. Openly available ebooks are a useful complementary set of books that students and lecturers should be aware of as they can be used for study and in many cases, adapted for your own teaching. We invite you to explore these established providers of free ebooks. All ebooks, whether free or obtained through UL's institutional licences should be referenced when used in academic work.
Open access is "digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions. What makes OA possible is the internet and the consent of the author or copyright-holder" Peter Suber, Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication.
Archive.Org offers access to many older, historical editions and archival version of books but it includes a lending library of digital books
DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books is a directory of academic peer-reviewed books from many publishers
Europeana works with thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to share cultural heritage material, including books.
Europeana gives you access to free copies of books, and music and artworks.
Google Books If a book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given permission, you'll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it's in the public domain, you're free to download a PDF copy. If the book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given permission, you'll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it's in the public domain, you're free to download a PDF copy.
HathiTrust is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
OAPEN Online Library contains the full text of peer reviewed OA books which are 'free to read' online.
OER Commons : Open Textbooks includes textbooks from university publishers in many undergraduate subjects. this collection includes
Openstax Rice University's open textbook project, elementary to intermediate levels in mathematics, business, economics, sciences and social sciences.
Open Textbook Library contains 700+ published textbooks which are licensed for free use in all subjects.
Openaire Books, theses, articles and datasets from European Open Access libraries and Institutional Repositories
Publications office of the EU : EU Bookshop Publications and Reports published by the EU Institutions and bodies.
Springer is a reputable publisher and has made some of its books openly available
United Nations iLibrary is the global search, discovery, and viewing source for digital content created by the United Nations​.
arXiv- Cornell University provides open access to over 900,000 e-prints in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance and Statistics.