Seton Hall University Libraries: Open Access and More: Books

For SHU librarians for now, a place to keep track of open access resources and other useful information

Books in the Public Domain (free from copyright)

Books and other works in the public domain may be freely accessed. In the USA, this means works published prior to 1927. Some books may be made open access under specified conditions, or thanks to the generosity of the authors and/or publishers. However, please note that we cannot offer access to any copyrighted books unless the publisher or copyright owner has so permitted. Please remember to correctly CITE any works that you reference in assignments or publications.

Open Access eBook Databases

Directory of Open Access Books: DOAB This link opens in a new window
Cornell Open eBooks This link opens in a new window
Project Gutenberg This link opens in a new window

Internet Archive
eBooks from your library
check SHU Libraries' complete listing of subscribed (copyrighted) eBooks as well as open access eBooks (you can filter by database type "open access")

eBook regional and specialized collections

Other Free Books on the Web

Google Books. Allows users to search the full text of books that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical character recognition, and stored in its digital database. Some books in the public domain are available full text; copyrighted books allow 'snippet views'.. See Google books Advanced Search Page.

National Academies Press. Offers more than 4,000 titles in PDF format. All of these PDFs can be downloaded for free by the chapter or the entire book. There are also purchase options.

The Online Books Page
This site from the University of Pennsylvania provides more than 14,000 books free in various formats. Most are older works, but you will find some classic titles here.