Research Guides: Free Resources: Textbooks

How to Find Your Textbook

During the beginning of the COVID19 pandemic, several publishers were making their textbooks available for free online.

Unfortunately, this is no longer the case.

Contact the Campus Store at SBCC to locate and purchase or rent your textbook.

The information below offers links to sources of digitized books--some of them may offer required readings.

To access databases from off campus, log in with your Pipeline username and password:

Credo Reference This link opens in a new window
Contains the full text of nearly 800 encyclopedias, dictionaries, bilingual dictionaries, and other reference books covering all major subject areas. Thousands of Topics Pages provide articles from different reference sources, arranged by subject.
Gale Ebooks This link opens in a new window
Contains the full text of encyclopedias and specialized reference sources. Subjects covered include arts, biography, business, education, environment, history, law, literature, medicine, multicultural studies, government and political science, religion, science, and social sciences.

eBook Collection This link opens in a new window
A collection of over 22,000 electronic books, in all subject areas, selected for the Luria Library collection. Books can be searched either through this database, or through the library catalog (the “books” tab on the homepage).
Ebook Central College Complete This link opens in a new window
Provides unlimited access to more than 40,000 ebooks in a range of subject areas, including: business; computer science; career guidance; vocational education; liberal arts; and health.

The Internet Archive
“Provides free public access to collections of digitized materials, including web sites, software applications/games, music, movies/videos, moving images, and nearly three million public-domain books.”
OpenLibrary
From the Internet Archive.
OpenStax College
A project of Rice University, OpenStax has produced 25 textbooks written by subject experts. They have focused their efforts on producing textbooks for high-enrollment courses in higher education that have most the significant traditional textbook costs. OpenStax offers peer-reviews, supplemental materials, and support for faculty that adopt their open textbooks.
Open Textbook Library
“A growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks”. This is a project of the Open Textbook Network, a collection of higher education institutions dedicated to promoting OER.