Research Guides: E-Books: Free eBook Collections

Free eBooks online

*Please apply general rules of evaluating resources. Some of these sites are from commercial organisations rather than academic institutions and so the academic quality and usefullness of the resource can not be guaranteed.

The Press at Cal Poly Humboldt eBooks
We offer digital versions of all of our publications, but our fiction books (and some non fiction) are also made into reflowable eBooks so that they may be enjoyed in multiple eReader applications.
Open Library
This is an initiative of the Internet Archive.
Universal Library Project
Pioneered by Carnegie Mellon University staff and supported by the Indian, Chinese and Egyptian governments. A multilingual collection of scanned volumes.
Note: Quality of scanned documents is uneven in some cases.
DOAB: Directory of Open Access Books
1600+ academic peer-reviewed books from 54 publishers. Can search for books by title, subject or publisher. The majority of the books are in Arts related fields of study.
Internet Archive Text Archive
Over five million books and other items from over 1500 curated collections.
Site has a user forum available for any troubleshooting needs.
eBook Directory
The eBook Directory is an aggregator for links to different online sites which offer free eBooks.
Google eBooks
Use the direct search box in the tool bar on the left side.
Project Gutenberg
Over 33,000 free e-books are available for download at Project Gutenberg. These are e-books published before the 20th century and are free because their U.S. copyrights have expired.
The International Children's Digital Library
This is the preeminent online library for free children's e-books. With over 4,461 books in 55 different languages, the ICDL is a great resource for educators and counselors.
National Academies Press
Over 700 free texts available to read online. Create a free account first. Read more about it on this library blog post.
Smithsonian Digital Library
Online books and selected serials from the Smithsonian. Content is available on all eReaders.
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
A collection of electronic texts with a focus on Western philosophy and American + English Literature. Of particular use to Arts students.
Avalon project:Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
An online library of significant documents in Law, History and Diplomacy as compiled by Yale Law School's Lillian Goldman Law Library. These documents range from ancient times (4000 BCE-399AD) through to 21st century documents. Noted collections include project DIANA, an online human rights archive, and the International Military Tribunal for Germany archive for documents relating to the Nuremberg trials.
Perseus Digital Library
A Tufts University initiative supporting the study of the Classical world. The Greek and Roman collection is the most popular but the site also provides access to materials from Arabic, Germanic, Renaissance, and 19th century American collections.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
Hathi Trust is a partnership of academic & research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world. Their focus is on long term preservation of and access to materials.
University of Michigan: Digital Collections
List of all digital collections maintained by the University of Michigan. This includes the Digital General Collection- 30 000+ scanned volumes from the University's general collection- and various text and art archives spanning multiple subject areas.
Note: Some of the collections are only available to University of Michigan students. Please check the Access terms for each collection before use.
Kobo eBooks
Free eBooks from one of the leading eBook vendors.
Note: Would be of most use to Literature students. Majority of options available are fiction resources.
Barnes & Noble free eBooks
Barnes and Noble offers free eBooks, including some popular fiction titles, self published eBooks, and classic fiction titles.
50 best websites to find free eBooks
An eBook reference list created by the blog Hongkiat. Hongkiat is a design weblog dedicated to designers and bloggers, which often features articles about e-resources, including e-readers and eBooks.

Google Books Alert!

NOTE:

1. The Cal Poly Humboldt Library has thousands of eBooks

2. Google Books does not know what books you have access to as a Cal Poly Humboldt student

3. Google Books offers previews of paid content and access to free eBooks (books that are not copyright protected)

4. Often Google Books will direct you to sites where you can BUY an eBook

5. Don't pay - look up the book in the Cal Poly Humboldt Library FIRST.

Free eBooks

The Online Books Page is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet. It also aims to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all.

Free Foreign Language eBooks

This list of free international eBooks is courtesy of Dr. Cavanaugh's Educational Technology website.

Antologia della Letteratura Italiana: http://www.crs4.it/HTML/Literature.html
Italian: Novels, poetry, plays & other texts, both classic & contemporary, in HTML, for reading online.

Aozora Bunko: http://www.aozora.gr.jp
Over 2000 works of Japanese literature. Formats include: HTML, ZIP, and Japanese eBook.

Athena Texts Francais: http://un2sg4.unige.ch/athena/
French: 10,000 eBooks (French & Swiss Authors) Literature, philosophy, history, economics, & science, etc.

Belarusian e-Library: http://knihi.com
Belarusian literature in Belarusian, with some English, German & other translations.

Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France): http://gallica.bnf.fr
French: Over 2500 digitized works.

Biblioteca Virtual do Estudante Brasileiro: http://www.bibvirt.futuro.usp.br/index.html?principal.html&2
Portuguese: Several hundred eBooks.

Brasilian e-books: http://vbookstore.uol.com.br/nacional
Portuguese: Over sixty free titles from 26 authors, including José de Alencar, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis and Afonso Henrique da Lima Barreto. All public domain books or with author permission. Formats include Word, PDF, RTF and Palm PDB.

Digital Library of India: http://www.dli.ernet.in/
Indian: Over 29,000 books predominantly in Indian languages.

Gottingen State & University Library, Germany: http://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/search-entry.shtml
German: Approximately 4500 eBook titles, primarily in German, French, & English, devoted mostly to Exploration & Travel Literature & Mathematics. (The English-Language titles are indexed)

Libros Tauro (Argentina): http://www.librostauro.com.ar/
Spanish: Several thousand eBooks.

New Threads Chinese Cultural Society: http://www.xys.org
Chinese: Electronic library archive of Chinese classic texts.

ngiyaw eBooks ( German): http://ngiyaw-ebooks.org/
German works with some classic English and Hungarian books also. Formats include: (.pdf), (.prc), (.lit), (.tr), and (HTML) for your Web browser.

Online Books Page Links to Foreign Language Libraries: http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/archives.html#foreign
Links to over seventy foreign language libraries with languages ranging from Afghan to Czech, French to Russian, Latin to Yiddish.

Ozoz: http://www.ozoz.it/cyberbooks.htm
Classic texts in Italian, English and Latin. Available formats: HTML ; RTF; TXT.

Russian Science Fiction and Fantasy: http://www.rusf.ru
Books available online here, in both Russian & English in ZIP and HTML formats.

Attribution

Much of the content for the page "Free eBook Collections" comes from the guide eBooks at UTAS Library.