Publicly Accessible Resources: Selected resources

Items listed on this guide are openly accessible and without cost (although no-cost registration may be required for some resources).

Virginia resources

U.S. government & public policy

International information sources

Free databases

Digital Libraries and Repositories

Directory of Open Access Repositories - OpenDOAR

Registry of Open Access Repositories

Smithsonian Institution Digital Library

Perseus Digital Library (Greco-Roman literature, culture etc.)

Environmental Protection Agency Archive Policy Commons houses a collection of over 36,000 articles and reports published by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency from the 1980s to 2020s. Documents are available to download in PDF format. To access a document within the EPA  Archive, you must first be signed-in to Policy Commons using your VT credentials, then you will be prompted to verify your VT email address. After verifying your email, you will be able to search the EPA Archive to view and download documentsScreenshot of Policy Commons message to verify your email address in order to confirm your affiliation with Virginia Tech..Screenshot of Policy Commons page displaying the EPA collection. Virginia Tech branding is visible on the top banner, showing the user is successfully logged in.

 

Journals

AGRICOLA from USDA

AGRICOLA serves as the public catalog of the National Agricultural Library. It contains records for all of the holdings of the Library. It also contains citations to articles, much like PubAg. AGRICOLA also contains citations to many items that, while valuable and relevant to the agricultural sciences, are not peer-reviewed journal articles. Also, AGRICOLA has a different interface. So, while there is some overlap between the two resources, they are different in significant ways.

BioMed Central

Hindawi Open Access Journals

Searching Extension Resources

Easy search access to resources provided by your Land-Grant institutions.

This service allows you to search the resources provided by your Cooperative Extension Service using a Google Custom Search Engine that includes many of the Cooperative Extension web sites provided by your Land-Grant institutions.

Ask a Librarian

Audiobooks

Free audiobooks are available from a number of online sites. These typically include books that have passed into the public domain.

librivox.org (Free public domain audio books. Volunteer or listen)

audiobooks.org

Project Gutenberg (Human or computer-read books)

Images

Some images may use a Creative Commons license

Search via Creative Commons (Attribution required)

Search via Google Advanced Images Search (scroll down to "Rights" and use drop down menu to filtering by type of license) (Attribution required)

Search via CompFight (Attribution required)

Prints & Photographs Online Catalog from the Library of Congress (Public domain)

For readers with print disabilities

Bookshare (requires free-for-schools membership. Other memberships have a fee.) About membership

Several commercial sites that sell audio books (also have free podcasts for some materials)

Amazon (Apps for free podcasts)

iTunes (tips for finding free podcasts)

Contact Person

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Inga Haugen
Contact:
204 Newman Library
540.231.7546