LibGuides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Open Textbooks & Other Books

Tips for Finding Open Textbooks

Library staff have identified hundreds of recently published open textbooks, which can be found under Open Resources by Subject in the left menu bar, but you may also want to search the OER collections yourself to find free and open materials for your courses. The top recommended repositories are listed further down this page.

You are also welcome to schedule an in-person or online Personal Research Appointment with the Instruction & Reference Specialist, who can help track down sources for your courses.

How to Select and Evaluate OER: Backward Design

Faculty are encouraged to use the "backward design" method, which means first reassessing learning outcomes and objectives on their syllabi and then locating OER materials or other free library resources that align. It is common to select chapters from multiple open textbooks that align with the natural subdivisions within a course. Even if you prefer to use your regular textbook, open textbooks can be used for supplementary or remedial readings for students who need more background knowledge.

Faculty evaluating OER generally consider the following criteria:

Clarity/comprehensibility/readability - Is the material at the appropriate level for students and does the content flow smoothly from section to section?
Content/technical accuracy - Is it accurate? Peer-reviewed? Are there any other types of errors or formatting issues?

Top Recommended Repositories/Collections of OER Textbooks

OpenStax
OpenStax, based at Rice University, publishes peer-reviewed, openly licensed, free textbooks. Each textbook is typically co-authored by 10 to 30 subject-matter experts, and the textbook versions are updated frequently. Instructors can create instructor accounts that grant special access to test question banks and other resources.
Open Textbook Library
The Open Textbook Library, maintained by the University of Minnesota, provides links and faculty reviews for open textbooks from across the world. These textbooks are free to distribute, and are licensed to be freely adapted or changed with proper attribution. This source includes both basic and advanced-level textbooks.
Pressbooks Directory
Searchable catalog of over 7,000 open textbooks
British Columbia Open Collection
Selection of OER resources meeting high standards set by educators in British Columbia, Canada.

Other Collections of Quality OER Materials:

DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books
DOAB is a discovery service for peer-reviewed open access books and book publishers.
Library of Congress Open Access Books
This is a growing online collection of contemporary open access e-books.
Libretexts
Platform for accessing and customizing OER textbooks and other materials
MERLOT (Multimedia Education Resource for Learning and Online Teaching)
Access curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
OAOPEN.org
OAOPEN promotes and supports the transition to open access for academic books from European networks.
OER Commons - Advanced Search
OER Commons is searchable by material type/medium, subject area, and other parameters. Find textbooks by checking "Textbook" under "Material Type" when searching.
OER Commons - Open Textbooks
Platform for easily browsing textbook titles organized by subject, level, and other parameters
Open Access MUSE
Discover open access resources in the Humanities from Project Muse.
Open Library from Internet Archive
The goal of the Open Library is to make published works available to everyone in the world. Make a personal account to log in to the Library.
Open Oregon
Course materials used by Oregon community college and university instructors to reduce textbook costs. This source is beneficial since you can see what materials instructors have found to be useful for specific courses.
Open Research Library
The Open Research Library (ORL) includes more than 200,000 open access books.
Open Textbook Initiative
These open textbooks are approved by the American Institute of Mathematics
PDXOPEN
The Portland State University Library publishes open educational resources (OERs) and open access textbooks that are free to anyone in the world.
Project Gutenberg
Find some of the world’s great literature here, with focus on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired.
Standard Ebooks
Use this collection of high quality, open source, public domain ebooks free of U.S. copyright restrictions.

OER Textbooks vs. E-Books at the Montgomery Library

Another way to reduce textbooks costs is to assign Montgomery Library electronic resources as course readings. Just make sure the library has permanent access to those materials. To find recommended library resources that are part of our permanent collection, please scroll to the middle / bottom of the page for your subject area. (Fnd your subject area under Open Resources by Subject in the left menu bar.)

You are also invited to schedule an in-person or online Personal Research Appointment with the Instruction & Reference Specialist, who can help identify possible course readings for you.