CBC E-book Collections
The following subscription-based databases contain e-book collections accessible by students, faculty, and staff.
Freely Accessible Book Collections
The collections listed here contain freely accessible to anyone with internet access. They include the full-text, cover-to-cover, of print books. Most of them are in the public domain, meaning no one holds a copyright on them. Some sites will allow you to download the entire book. Others will only allow viewing or printing.
Project Gutenberg
- Web site: http://www.gutenberg.org
- Free archive of over 32,000 full text, public domain, books
- All of the books are available as downloadable plain text HTML files
- The site also includes audiobooks that are downloadable
Internet Archive
- Web site: http://archive.org
- The site's Open Access Text Archive contains texts that are either in the public domain or uploaded under a Creative Content license
- Contains over 100,000 texts, audio files, maps, video, and more
- Provides permanent access to historical collections in digital format.
- Many texts are available in downloadable format such as plain text, html, PDF, or Flip Book
The Online Books Page
- Web site: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu
- Indexed listing of over 30,000 free e-books on the web by the University of Pennsylvania
- Allows searching by Library of Congress call number, or subject browsing
- The collection includes fiction and non-fiction
Google Book Search
- Web site: http://books.google.com
- Each book includes a brief amount of information for the searcher, such as title and author
- When searching for books, choose "Full View Books". This option will return only books for which you will have access
- Full View Books are books that are out of copyright or otherwise authorized to be completely accessible
- Limited Preview Books will include an authorized excerpt of the book
Feedbooks
- Web page: http://www.feedbooks.com
- Feedbooks is a free service which provides downloadable books for mobile devices, e-paper devices, and computers
- It provides ebooks in a number of formats, including plain text: ePub - Mobipocket/Kindle - PDF - Sony Reader - iLiad - Custom PDF
- The books are public domain books and free from copyright restrictions
- They include fiction and nonfiction titles
Manybooks
- Web page: http://manybooks.net
- Manybooks is a free services which provides downloadable books for mobile devices, e-paper devices, and computers
- It provides ebooks in a number of formats, including PDF, ereader, Plucker, Palm Doc, Kindle, Mobipocket, ePub, and others
- The books are public domain books and free from copyright restrictions
- They include fiction and nonfiction titles
Bartleby: Great Books Online
- Web site: http://www.bartleby.com
- Free archive of classic literature
- Extensive collection of poetry, prose, drama, nonfiction, dictionaries, quotations, thesauri and reference books
- Individual entries of books can be viewed and printed for free
- Individual entries also include bibliographic citation information
The Complete Works of Charles Darwin
- Web site: http://darwin-online.org.uk
- Free archive of all published and non-published works by Darwin
- Claims to be the largest free collection of works by and about Darwin
- Contains over 50,000 searchable pages of text
- Site includes downloadable mp3 files of Darwin's works
- Individual publications and books are printable, but not for download
The Internet Classics Archive
- Web site: http://classics.mit.edu/
- Both well-known and lesser known works of Greek and Roman literature
- Many are downloadable plain text or html. A few are links to other hosted locations
- Provides a link to similar collections held by other institutions
The Online Medieval & Classical Library
- Web page: http://omacl.org
- A collection of literary works of Classical and Medieval civilization
- Works are in plain HTML format
OpenLibrary
- Web page: http://openlibrary.org
- Wants to have one web page for every book published
- Includes millions of book records
- Includes full text component of copyright-free books
- Downloadable books in pdf, html, epub, kindle, daisy, mobi
Free Tech Books
- Web site: http://www.freetechbooks.com
- Free programming, computer science, engineering, electronic books and lecture notes
- Allows free viewing, downloading, and/or printing of all but a few titles
- The site also includes free magazine and newsletter subscriptions in a wide variety of tech-related fields
University of Minnesota Open Textbook Catalog
- Web site: https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/
- Students can access free digital versions or purchase low-cost print copies of open textbooks (Univ. of Minnesota students)
- Books are downloadable in Adobe PDF format, or read online
- Instructors can customize open textbooks to fit their course needs by remixing, editing, and adding their own content.
- Subjects include a variety in all academic fields
