LibGuides: Getting Textbooks to Zero Student Cost: Finding Zero- & Low-Cost Materials

Other Collections

California Open Online Library for Education (COOL4Ed)
Find materials by C-ID; use MERLOT's SmartSearch to find OER in MERLOT, over 60 other libraries, and the web; search the SkillsCommons library for Free Workforce Development OER; and enter the ISBN of a book to find related free eTextbooks.
Open Educational Resources by Discipline
The Academic Senate for California Community Colleges Open Educational Resources Initiative (ASCCC OERI) curates a list of OERs which correspond to the Course Identification Numbering System (C-ID).

OASIS
"Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 115 different sources and contains 455,492 records."
Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)
"Real-time federated search for OER content across 21 resources."

Some books have been shared in the Canvas Commons.
- OpenStax, for example, provides course shells for their materials.
You can also import LibreTexts books into Canvas, though this may already exist as a "course" you can import via the Commons.
Faculty Instructional Designers Pam Huntington, Keri Ortiz, and Chelsea Quam are excellent resources for the how-to if importing content is new for you.

B.C. Open Collection
Located in Canada, BC Campus is a worldwide leader in OER. The BC Open Collection can help educators "f]ind free, open, and customizable materials by course or subject."
Minnesota State: Opendora
"Opendora: the all-in-one solution for the storage of open educational resources for Minnesota State."
OERTX Repository
"Discover collections of resources. Contribute OER. Collaborate with educators."
Open Oregon
"This page lists course materials that Oregon community college and university instructors are using to reduce textbook costs in their courses."

LibreTexts - Free the Textbook
The LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of open educational resources (OER) to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society. Click on "Explore the Libraries" and choose your discipline
MIT Open Courseware
OCW Educator helps education professionals navigate the vast library of openly licensed MIT teaching materials available on MIT OpenCourseWare. Explore Instructor Insights to discover how MIT instructors teach with these materials on campus, and freely select and adapt their explanations, examples, and simulations to help concepts come to life in your own classroom
OER Commons
OER Commons is a public digital library of open educational resources. Explore, create, and collaborate with educators around the world to improve curriculum.
OpenSTAX
We publish high-quality, peer-reviewed, openly licensed college textbooks that are absolutely free online and low cost in print. Seriously. We've also developed a low-cost, research-based courseware that gives students the tools they need to complete their course the first time around. Check out our current library of textbooks and explore OpenStax Tutor.
Open Textbook Library
Open textbooks are licensed by authors and publishers to be freely used and adapted. Download, edit and distribute them at no cost.
Pressbooks
This directory provides an index of 3,169 books published across 112 Pressbooks networks.
Open Course Library
A collection of high quality, free-to-use courses that you can download and use for teaching. All content is stored in Google docs making it easy to access, browse and download.
SoftChalk Cloud
Use SoftChalk Cloud to create interactive and engaging digital curriculum for use in any learning management system (or for use without an LMS).

Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
"DOAJ is a unique and extensive index of diverse open access journals from around the world, driven by a growing community, and is committed to ensuring quality content is freely available online for everyone. DOAJ is committed to keeping its services free of charge, including being indexed, and its data freely available."
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
"DOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to 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."

All Databases

A-Z Databases
An alphabetical list of the library's 72 databases. Use these to help you find library-licensed eBooks, articles from a variety of news, magazine, and journal sources, streaming films, and more. Some databases also contain open access content, denoted by the unlocked orange lock icon.

Best Bets for eBooks & Videos

While you can find materials in any of the databases to use for your classes, the links below direct specifically to eBooks available in EBSCO and two streaming video databases, Academic Video Online (AVON; AKA Alexander Street) and Films on Demand (FOD). The streaming video databases also have LTIs within Canvas, which are available in the rich text editor.

EBSCO eBook Collection
Provides access to the library's eBooks provided by EBSCOhost. Includes scholarly and reference books.
Films on Demand (Infobase)
Films Media Group is the leading source of high-quality video and multimedia for academic, vocational and life-skills content. Films Media Group serves the education community through its four brands: Films for the Humanities and Sciences, Cambridge Educational, Meridian Education, and Shopware.
Academic Video Online (Alexander Street)
ProQuest's Alexander Street products are curated, discipline-focused, primary-source collections, websites, and streaming media for learning and research.