How to Find Free Textbooks Online
Ten sources for free online textbooks
By Wendy Boswell, About.com Guide
Going to university is expensive, and textbooks can make the bill go even higher. However, you don't have to break the bank to finance a good education; there are plenty of places on the Web where you can find and download free online textbooks for nearly any class available. Here are ten sources on the Web you can use to find free textbooks freely available to either download and print offline or view online in your browser.
1. USE GOOGLE
The first place to start when looking for a textbook is Google, using the filetype command. Type in filetype:pdf, followed by the name of the textbook you're looking for in quotes. Here's an example:
filetype:pdf "history of anthropology"
If you don't have any luck with the book's title, try the author (again, surrounded by quotes), or, you can also look for another type of file: PowerPoint (ppt), Word (doc), etc.
2. OPEN CULTURE
Open Culture, a fascinating repository of some of the best content on the Web, has assembled an ongoing database of free textbooksranging in subject from Biology to Physics. This list will be updated on a regular basis.
MIT has offered free, open courseware for several years now, and along with these free classes comes free textbooks. You'll have to search for specific classes and/or textbooks on the site in order to find what you're looking for.
4. TEXTBOOK REVOLUTION
Run by students, Textbook Revolution offers free textbooks organized by subject, license, course, collections, topic, and level.
5. FLAT WORLD KNOWLEDGE
Flat World Knowledge is an interesting site that offers textbooks free of charge, mixed with other applicable resources that serve as supplements. All of the books are free to view online.
6. ONLINE MATHEMATICS TEXTBOOKS
Professors from the Georgia Institute of Technology have collated an impressive list of online mathematics texts, ranging from calculus to mathematical biology.
7. WIKIBOOKS
Wikibooks offers a wide variety of free textbooks (over 2000 at the time of this writing), in subjects from computing to social sciences.
8. FREE DIGITAL TEXTBOOK INITIATIVE
From the California Learning Resource Network, the Free Digital Textbook Initiative offers a good selection of free textbooks suitable for both high school and college students.
9. CURRIKI
Curriki isn't just about free textbooks, although you can find those at the site. Curriki offers a fantastic array of free educational resources, anything from science kits to novel studies.
10. SCRIBD
Scribd is a huge database of user-contributed content. Sometimes you can get lucky and find full textbooks here; type in the name of your book into the search field and hit "enter". For example, I just found a textbook about quantum physics mechanics.
