Vet Med Library Information: Openly Available Books

This page and corresponding tabs provide information about the Veterinary Medicine Library's resources, policies, services, etc. at Virginia Tech

Openly Available Veterinary Medicine Books

Openly Available Textbooks

The following texts are Open Education Resources (OER) that are freely available to use and adapt in courses/instruction and for anyone to access:

Anatomy and Physiology of Animals

Audience is Veterinary nurses. This book describes the structure of the animal body and the way in which it works. Animals encountered in normal veterinary practice are used as examples where possible. (CC BY NC SA)

Animals & Ethics 101: Thinking Critically about Animal Rights
This book provides an overview of the current debates about the nature and extent of our moral obligations to animals. Which, if any, uses of animals are morally wrong, which are morally permissible (i.e., not wrong) and why? What, if any, moral obligations do we, individually and as a society (and a global community), have towards animals and why? How should animals be treated? Why? (CC BY SA)

Large Animal Surgery - Supplemental Notes
This textbook includes basic principles of large animal surgery and anesthesia, how to apply those principles to cases and situations, and discover ways of finding answers when you don’t remember the information, are presented with cases that aren’t “textbook” and/or things don’t go as planned.

Veterinary Histology
Veterinary Histology is a microscopic anatomy textbook focused on domestic species, including the dog, cat, cattle, horses, swine, and camelids. This digital textbook provides comprehensive, system-specific text as well as high-resolution, annotated images along with chapter-specific glossary of terms and learning objectives. (CC BY NC)

Freely available textbooks

Although these are not provided under an OER license, the following are links to textbooks that are available for anyone to download and access to read:

Veterinary Epidemiology
Veterinary Epidemiology / by Martin, Meek and Willeberg provides an introductory, yet comprehensive, source of information on epidemiology for veterinary students, researchers, and practitioners. There has not been a textbook that presents analytic epidemiology as a science, basic to veterinary medicine's efforts in health management (herd health) as well as in clinical medicine. [Originally published by Iowa State University Press in 1987. Rights reverted to the authors who authorized digitization by the University Libraries at Virginia Tech and release under a CC BY NC ND license with additional permission granted up front for translation and format changes.] Direct link: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/72274
InTech Open Access books on Veterinary Medicine
600+ freely available online books from InTech.
40+ veterinary textbooks (University of Georgia)
The University of Georgia offers 40+ veterinary textbooks in Apple iBook format through iTunes/ iStore. Freely downloadable but not openly licensed. No version currently exists for Windows OS systems.

Equine-focused books available for Mac OS systems

Five books have been released at no charge on the Apple iStore for Macs, iPads, and iPhones:

Work is underway to make these available through Windows OS platforms as well, but as of April 3, 2020, those versions are not yet available.

Interested in other Open Access works?

Check out our Open Education Resources guide:

https://guides.lib.vt.edu/oer/vetmed

This includes handbooks, interactive resources, additional textbooks, course materials, and areas such as anatomy and diagnostic tools.