22 Websites For Finding Free College Textbooks

Download an article plus other legal options for loan and downloading textbook

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Purchase of textbooks can be a big expense. Fortunately, you can get some textbooks online for free. If your course uses textbooks that are in public domain, have an open license or are part of a digital library, you can legally download them from the Internet. (This is not the same as the download of textbooks protected by copyrighted rights without paying, which is illegal.) Learn the top websites of free textbooks for students, as well as other ways to get free or cheap textbooks.

• Review millions of free textbooks in the Internet Archives Open library place.
• Download or read classic books and textbooks from Gutenberg project.
• Find free open educational resources including textbooks, on Oer Commons website.
• Filter “Only the whole view” to see free, open licensed textbooks on Google’s books.

1. 

   Internet archives open library (Archive.org) Internet archives host over 40 million books and texts. Review their open library to find the textbooks you need. Some books are available for request on request, while others require you to make a free online archive account and borrow them-you as you would do it in the personal library.[1]

   • Some titles of Internet archives can be borrowed and read only one user. If the book is marked “on loan”, try to borrow it later.

2. Gutenberg project The Gutenberg Library Internet project offers over 75,000 free E -book. Most books are available to download or read online, regardless of the format you prefer. Use this site when looking for classic books or textbooks over 95 years old. The site does not host books that have active copyright protection.[2]

3. Google’s books Although Google Books is a useful book -looking resource, few people realize that the host is a full version of some copyright books. Look for textbooks by name, then open the “Advanced Book Search” feature. In addition to “Search:” Title, Switch “Just a full view.” Then click “Google Search” to see if your textbook is available.

   • Google Books primarily has full versions of older books that are in public domain or otherwise not protected by copyright. You will not find the full versions of textbooks protected by copyright.

4. MIT OpenCourseware MIT OpenCourseware (OCW) offers free open educational resources (OER) from MIT. The website contains textbooks and other courses resources that cover the entire MIT curriculum.[3]
   If your course has assigned a myth Oer textbook or looking for a textbook for a self -teaching, inspect the digital library to find it and download it for free.

5. Open library of textbooks Move through 1,590 textbook textbooks of the open textbook library to find the one you need for your high school or teaching at colleges. The textbooks are free to take over, and some are protected by copyrights still in 2025. Users, primarily teachers, leave the textbook reviews, so you gain a sense of their quality.[4]

6. Digital public library of America The digital public library of America is a non -profit organization 501 (c) (3) that hosts various educational facilities, including textbooks, primary original documents and banned books. Like most of the websites of legal free textbooks, DPLAs generally contain older works that are no longer protected by copyright.[5]

7. Hathitrust Digital Library Search Hathitrust -a digital library of over 18 million items to find textbooks and educational materials. Keep in mind that the collection of the Digital Library Hathitrust requires membership to view and download the entire library. Membership is not for individuals, but for institutions such as research libraries and college colleges who pay annual fees.[6]

8. Liberated FREEDITITORAL is a better source for assigned readings than for academic textbooks. The website offers free books that are in public domain or, for other reasons, incapable. It is also a self-published book by independent authors, and nowhere, all this is free.[7]

9. E-book directory Check out the E-book Directorate to find more than 10,000 e-book textbooks, technical works and other educational resources. The site contains textbooks on a series of topics, such as engineering, mathematics, physics and computer programming. The advantage of this free textbook website is that it is available on mobile devices with small screens, like your phone.

10. Open culture Open culture is a resource for courses without copyright, movies, e-books, textbooks and more. They host free textbooks that are openly licensed, which means that the author (s) and publishers allow anyone to use them without any costs. Search through 200 free textbooks of open culture that cover topics such as business, mathematics and philosophy to see if they have what you need for your course.

11. Oer Commons Review more than 7000 free textbooks on the open educational resource website (OER). These textbooks are openly licensed, which means that anyone is free to approach and download.[8]
    Search by a keyword to find the right books for your course.

12. Open research library Use the open research library (ORL) to search books with open approach that are reviewed and available for free. Their offer includes books of the main publishers of textbooks such as Taylor & Francis. In addition to free textbooks, the site also hosts free chapters from the textbook.[9]

13. PDF Book World Search PDF books for classic books and older academic texts in public domain that are usually assigned to different courses. Examples from their digital libraries include Plato’s Republic and de Tocqueville’s democracy in America.[10]

14. BC Open Collection BC Open Collection Resources is for teachers and students seeking open licensed textbooks. The website has modern, easy to use, and hosts are recently published textbooks in various topics. Although oriented to Canadian educators and classrooms, resources are available globally.[11]

15. OpenStax.org OpenStax led the Rice University, is the largest publisher of the Open Education Resources (OER). Their textbooks are shown on many free textbook websites. If your professor or teacher awarded an OER textbook, look for it at OpenStax to download as a PDF or online examination.[12]

16. Libre texts Libreexts hosts open educational resources (OER) that can be adapted and distributed for free. The website was founded by the University of California, Davis.[13]
    Land according to certain items to find the right free textbook for your course of over 3000 available.

17. Merlot The multimedia educational resource for learning and internet teaching (Merlot) hosts over 10,000 textbooks with open access to topics range from statistics to nursing and more. The website is one of the oldest resources for educational materials with an open approach, which runs the University of California.[14]

18. Directory of a book with an open approach Open -approach book directory is hosted by over 80,000 books with an open approach, including textbooks of various university prints and other academic publishers. What sets them apart from other places is that some of their materials are available in languages ​​that are not English, like French.[15]

19. Tester The analysis is a direct online catalog that connects to E -cornice and digital textbooks that are free to read through an open license. Search by subject, author or keyword to find the textbook you need for your course.

20. Myth press direct If your professor has assigned a textbook with MIT Press, make sure it is available on the MIT Press Direct website. On the site it contains over 4,000 books published by the myth press. Create a free account associated with the library of your academic institution to get access to E -Books of the website.[16]

21. Bookon Bookboon is a website that offers textbooks written by professors and other authors especially for the platform. If your course uses Bookboon, you can create an account to download e-book edition of Bookboon textbook during a 30-day free trial trial. However, Bookboon requires a monthly subscription for further use.[17]

    • If you are an independent student, consider whether the content and quality of textbook Bookboon are worth the subscription prices compared to other internet resources that are free.

22. Bookstore Bookshare is a unique E -book library that includes over one million books for people with disabilities, 10,000 of which are free. Qualified conditions include learning difficulties such as dyslexia, visual impairment such as blindness or physical disabilities that make it difficult to read prints.[18]
    The library has a combination of books, textbooks and other educational materials.[19]

    • To create a book account, you will need a professional who will confirm that you have a qualifying condition.
    • Not all book titles are free to read, but those in the public domain are. If you do not have a disability for printing, you can access the books of public domains for free on most other websites on this list.

• It is illegally downloaded by free textbooks from the Library of Shadows such as the Genesis Library. These websites allow digital piracy, which is a crime.[22]

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