Free eBook Collections

 The Web Wrap for 8/26/2022

As a student, I grew up in a print world where a research paper meant trips across campus to the college library, sometimes while enduring Minnesota winter.  Books were the primary resource; searching for journal articles meant thumbing through print indexes, and journals stayed in the library (typically in a basement) bound and quite heavy to carry.

Recently, I spent some in time exploring the administrative functions of our library catalog while searching for free eBook collections (also known as open access).

These are the collections I found:

The Bloomsbury Collections, a London publisher and distributor of scholarly digital content defines Open Access (OA) as “scholarly works that are free to access, share, and re-use.” Of some 11,000 titles In the Bloomsbury collections are some 300 eBooks, Bloomsbury is committed to adding an increasing number of open access books. To locate the limited number of open source books, follow this path: Home page >>> advanced search >>> create a search statement >>> refine Access results to “purchase/open access.” 

National Academies Press publishes open access monographs (scholarly books) of the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine. To date, the press has distributed over 8500 publications in PDF format.

Open Access Books as curated by JSTOR, is freely available (no subscription required) to anyone interested in a collection of over 8,000 books from recognized scholarly publishers such as Cornell University Press. Searchable from the same interface, JSTOR also adds its Early Journal Content to this collection.  It is also is also free. 

Additionally, check out Artstor and JSTOR’s curated set of more than “34,000 research reports (JSTOR). These come from more than 140 policy institutes selected with faculty, librarian, and expert input” (JSTOR).

The Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) provides access to almost 60,000 scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available” (2022).

Taylor & Francis eBooks: publishes peer-reviewed content covering multiple disciplines. In 2013, Taylor & Francis also began publishing open access books and chapters. Today users have access to between 1100 and 1200 titles.  Open and restricted access Journal content may also be accessed via the same search interface. 

Project Muse This database includes both Open Access and subscription-based content. Open Access Books, number at last count, 4498 academic titles. The content includes  “journals, and digital humanities works from several university presses, scholarly societies, and independent not-for-profit academic publishers” (Project Muse, 2022)  As an example of free content, is the essay, Introduction to Academic E-Books.

Nature Open Access eBooks is a collection of over 2000 open access titles, all of which are published by Spring Nature, an oft cited source of current science research.   An example of its content is the eBook, No Truth Without Beauty: God, The Quran and Women’s Rights.

 

Now, back to the catalog where I added all of these resources; (about 10,000), Most should be discoverable. One may also use the links in this email.

Cheers!

Jim Fisk MLS MA