Open Education: Find OER (open textbooks and more)

A "getting started" guide overviewing open, editable, and lower-cost textbooks and open teaching & learning resources for faculty, students, and librarians.

Finding OER and Open Textbooks

Open Educational Resources include more than textbooks, though open textbooks are a popular subset of open educational resources. Regarding non-book content, OER Commons, Merlot, and Google Advanced Search are helpful places to look. See also the tab above for Images & Illustrations.

Open Educational Resources and Open Textbooks: THE BIG SEVEN

Pressbooks Directory
A directory of 6,000+ publicly-available books in Pressbooks. Licenses vary. Many are more-easily customizable through Virginia Tech's Pressbooks software. See additional resources on authoring and customizing at: https://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer/authors Learn more about VT's Pressbooks instance at: https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu
Course Materials for Educators (BCcampus)
Find free, open, and customizable materials by course or subject organized by BCcampus. Includes coursepacks and textbooks.
LibreTexts
Zero cost open textbook access and remix system with content in biology, business, chemistry, geosciences, humanities, math, physics, Spanish, statistics, and workforce development. Features: embedded media, dynamic figures, Jupyter integration, Hypothes.is annotation, print on demand, LMS imports, and forthcoming WeBWork integration.
Open Textbook Library (Univ of MN)
The Open Textbook Library is a collection of over 1,500 freely available electronic textbooks licensed under one of six Creative Commons licenses. Some books include faculty peer reviews. All can be read online and are downloadable for offline reading. If you're interested in reviewing, check https://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer/opentextbooksintro to express interest in upcoming workshops -- and a $200 stipend for completing a written review.
OER Commons
Contains more than books! OER Commons indexes a wide variety of openly licensed educational materials. Licenses vary by item.
Search instructions: (Under "material type" select "textbook" or for a curated collection go to: https://www.oercommons.org/hubs/open-textbooks )
MERLOT
MERLOT contains links to freely available online textbooks from a variety of sources. MERLOT II is a project of the California State University System.
- Search instructions: (Filter "material type" by "open textbook").
OER by Discipline Guide
Contains links to a wide range of open educational resources organized by discipline. Provided by BCcampus.

Broaden your search: Federated or Metasearch tools for OER and open textbooks: THREE SOURCES

OASIS
Search for open access and openly licensed textbooks. From Milne Library at SUNY Geneseo.
Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)
Real-time, federated search across twenty-two different sources of open educational resources. About: https://publishing.gmu.edu/whos-using-the-mason-oer-metafinder
Google Advanced Search (with "Usage Rights" filter)
Use the "Usage Rights" filter on Google's Advanced Search (and Advanced Image Search) to find Creative Commons-licensed works.

Virginia-funded sites (higher education & PreK-12)

VIVA Open
A collection of Open Education Resources (OER) adopted, adapted, and/or created by faculty and higher education professionals at Virginia institutions. For VA-faculty-reviewed materials relevant to the first-two years of higher ed, see the transfer course mapping hub at https://vivaopen.oercommons.org/hubs/vccs_course_mapping. More info https://vivalib.org/va/open/course-mapping-project
#GoOpenVA
PreK-12 oriented site funded by VA Dept of Ed. By Virginia Educators, For Virginia Educators. More info about this site: https://goopenva.org/hubs/users-hub

Library-provided eBooks and Course Reserves (most are not OER)

Request purchase of a book or eBook via the University Libraries at Virginia Tech
Request purchase of a print or electronic item for the Library's collection (Requires 2-Factor authentication). Note that some publishers choose not to sell eBooks to libraries. More info on that here: https://sparcopen.org/news/2020/pandemic-amplifies-trouble-with-restrictive-licensing-and-e-textbooks
Course Reserve search tool
Many faculty members request that library-owned print textbooks (or their own personal copies) be put on Reserve. Some request that portions of materials be placed on Reserve in accordance with Fair Use.
- The following link directs faculty/GTAs to information regarding placing items on Reserve Reserve Info for Instructors.
(Note that if the library has purchased an eBook version, the library chooses to have any print versions in circulation rather than holding them in Reserves.)

- VIVA's Faculty Textbook Portal provides a search tool for open textbooks and unlimited-user eBooks which may be requested for purchased through a partnership with VIVA. Further information is available here.

Additional sources

Online Books Page
3 Million+ items. The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. The Online Books Page was founded, and is edited, by John Mark Ockerbloom, He is a digital library planner and researcher at the University of Pennsylvania.
Directory of Open Access Books
Openly accessible (and many but not all openly licensed) electronic books. Nearly 50,000 books as of March 2022. Includes search and browse finding features. Many times from international publishers and strong focus on humanities and social sciences.
TeachingCommons
Teaching Commons brings together high-quality open educational resources from leading colleges and universities. Curated by librarians and their institutions, the Teaching Commons includes open access textbooks, course materials, lesson plans, multimedia, and more.
Project Gutenberg (Public Domain)
Nearly 48,000 digitized books as of 2015. All in the public domain (in general, published before 1923). Available in epub, kindle, PDF or to be read online. Over 50 languages. Great source for classics and historical works.
Internet Archive
Digital library of free and borrowable books, movies, music, video, and the Wayback Machine

HathiTrust
The HathiTrust Digital Library contains over seven million volumes and over one billion pages of scanned books and other materials. About 20 percent of all content is in the public domain (and accessible to you). You can also browse several public collections. Content is available in several image formats, text, and PDF. 1200s-present.

Readings

Seven Things You Should Know about Open Textbook Publishing
This document is from EDUCAUSE.

Example OER content in various disciplines

OER by Discipline Guide (BCCampus)

Sample areas:

Agriculture
Apparel, Housing & Resource Management
Architecture, Interior Design & Landscape
Biological Sciences
Business
Chemistry
Classical Studies
Computer Science
Construction
Economics
Early Childhood Education Education (also)
Engineering
English
Foreign Languages and Literatures
Geosciences (Geology)
Health & Medicine
History
Human Nutrition, Food & Exercise
Information / Digital Literacy & Research Skills
International Studies
Law
Mathematics
Natural Resources and Environment
Performing Arts
Philosophy
Physics
Plant & Environmental Sciences
Political Science
Psychology
Public and International Affairs
Religion and Culture
Sociology
Statistics
Veterinary Medicine
Visual Arts