There are lots of openly available textbooks in various disciplines that are either completely free or offered at very low prices. Realizing that it can be overwhelming to locate those that are just right for you, we have identified sites that provide high quality open textbooks and broken them down by unique traits to make the search a little easier.

Possibly the most widely adopted open textbook repository for higher education. Nearly 500 universities and colleges have adopted Openstax textbooks. All textbooks are completely open with no strings attached. OpenStax College makes it easy to get high-quality textbooks for your course. You can download the books in 5 different formats including print version.

License Setting: All OpenStax textbooks are licensed under CC BY 3.0. This license lets you distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the original work, even commercially, as long as you credit the author for the original creation.

Sample Attribution: Introduction to Sociology by OpenStax College is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

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BCcampus has a curated collection of open textbooks that align with the 40 highest enrolled post-secondary subject areas in British Columbia. They provide guidance on locating and adapting/adopting existing open textbooks and creating new open textbooks. They constantly review and update the content, and notify subscribed members of these changes.

License Setting: All BC Campus materials are licensed under CC BY 4.0 which allows you to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the original work, even commercially, as long as you credit the author for the original creation. However, it is important to check the license setting of the original source and follow the terms of use as the original licensor requested. Fortunately, BCcampus provides clear license information of each original source they’ve adopted.

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Sample Attribution: Assuming that the resource is CC licensed, the basic attribution format is 'Resource X by Author Y is released under CC XX-XX-XX'. If the licensor wishes to be cited in a specific way, you must do so accordingly.

opentextlib

Open Textbook Library provides about 100 open textbooks from various disciplines. These textbooks have proven quality and have been used in classes at many universities and colleges. All textbooks are completely open with no strings attached.

License Setting: Most textbooks on this website are licensed under under CC BY NC SA. This license lets you remix, tweak, and build upon the original work non-commercially, as long as you credit the author and license your new creations under the identical terms.

Sample Attribution: Gross Domestic Product around the World (page 11) from International Finance: Theory and Policy by Steve Suranovic @Open Textbook Library is licensed under CC BY NC SA.

college-open-textbooks

College Open Textbooks is NOT a content provider. Instead, they search available open textbooks and provide the links. Currently, they are tracking more than 100 open textbooks for use in community college courses. Textbooks are organized by subjects, and provide a great number of basic introductory level courses, such as basic computer skills or college writing courses.

License Setting: As it provides the links to various external open textbooks, there is no default open license under which the materials are released.

boundless

Boundless provides a number of open course packages (47 course packages in Biology alone) in 22 discipline areas. Each course package contains reading materials, PowerPoints, and assessments. This resource also provides low-cost textbooks, most of them below $20 for full access.

License Setting: Most course content and user contributions on this site are licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0. This license lets you remix, tweak, and build upon the original work even for commercial purposes, as long as you credit the author and license your new creations under the identical terms.

Sample Attribution: The Goals of a Business from Introduction to Business by Boundless is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.