LibGuides: Primary Sources Home: E-Books

Subscription E-Books

Subscribed ebook sites

Below are links to subscription databases available for CNU students, faculty and staff.

Electronic books are available through many providers; subscription books can also be searched in the Trible Library catalog just like print titles.

Please be sure to read information regarding use of the ebooks, app downloads, and/or account creation.
If you are off campus you will be required to login to access the databases.

Brill Online Books & Journals This link opens in a new window
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Access selected titles in Classical Studies, Language and Linguistics, Literature and Cultural Studies, and Social Sciences.
Ebook Central This link opens in a new window
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Find ebooks on a wide variety of subjects.
eBooks on EBSCOhost This link opens in a new window
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Access an e-book collection. Some e-books are available through a CNU provided subscription, some are free, and others do not have full-text access. Check the catalog to see if alternative access is available.
Gale Ebooks This link opens in a new window
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Access to ebooks on a variety of topics.
HeinOnline Legal Classics Library This link opens in a new window
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An historical collection of legal treaties and other works related to the law.
Institute of Physics (IOP) Ebooks This link opens in a new window
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Access full text of selected titles only.
IOP ebooks™ brings together innovative digital publishing with leading voices from the scientific community. Being unconstrained by a print legacy, we developed IOP ebooks with a fully digital vision. Our books carry a wealth of interactive features and are available alongside our journals content on IOPscience, our semantically enriched platform.
O'Reilly for Higher Education This link opens in a new window
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- On Campus? Just enter your @cnu.edu email address when prompted! (or login to your account if you have created one.)
- Off Campus? You must create an account while on campus!
  More Info? Access Instructions
The platform includes more than 35K book titles plus 30K+ hours of video, proven learning paths, case studies, interactive tutorials, audio books, and videos from O’Reilly’s global conferences and 250 of the world’s best publishers. Unlimited user access! Mobile, multi-device technology! Personalization for ease of use!
Oxford Books This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to a selection of e-books from Oxford University Press as well as other University Presses.
Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window
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Online access to a variety of reference titles. Includes over 100 dictionaries, language reference and subject reference works, in addition it includes the Oxford Companions Series and the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. It is updated regularly with new titles, editions, entries, illustrations, weblinks and bibliographies.
ScienceDirect This link opens in a new window
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Access full-text of a small collection of e-books/journals through Elsevier's ScienceDirect database. Covers a variety of scientific and engineering topics.
SpringerLink Books & Journals This link opens in a new window
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Access e-books and journals published by Springer covering a range of scientific topics such as computer science, life science, and environmental science. Also, a limited number of protocols are available for free.
Taylor & Francis eBooks This link opens in a new window
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Access ebooks from across the Humanities, Social Sciences, Education, Behavioural Sciences, Built Environment and Law.
Wiley Online Library This link opens in a new window
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Provides access to ebook and journals covering a wide variety of subject areas such as: Art, Business, Humanities, Science, Social & Behavioral Science.

Off Campus Access
by Trible Library at CNU Last Updated Sep 11, 2024 1953 views this year
E-Reference
by Trible Library at CNU Last Updated Jun 24, 2024 331 views this year

Free E-Book Sites

Free ebook sites

Trible Library provides links to other websites to aid in research and is not responsible for the content or privacy policy of those sites.

Electronic books are available through many providers, including some free collections, some by subscription only, and some that are a combination of free and subscription-only materials.

Please be sure to read information regarding use of the ebooks, app downloads, and/or account creation.

Ask your local public library about accessing books through systems such as Libby and Hoopla!

Public Libraries in Virginia
The library of Virginia maintains a list of public libraries in Virginia - many provide access to ebooks and streaming audio and video content!
ACLS Humanities E-Book (HEB) - Open Access
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Selected titles from the ACLS Humanities E-Book collection are provided with free access.
Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
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This is a collection of public domain and open access documents with a focus on American and English literature as well as Western philosophy.
Amazon.com: Free Books and Low Priced Reading Options
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" From free classics to great deals, there's a book for every budget on Kindle.

Kindle opens the door to hundreds of thousands of affordable books. Whether you're looking for a great romance, an epic tale of adventure, the latest financial advice or anything else, there are books for every reader and every budget. And with the free Kindle Reading app, you can enjoy all these affordable options even if you do not own a Kindle device.

To help you make the best use of your valuable reading time, below are top-rated free or cheap books in popular categories. Sometimes free books exhibit variable quality or do not support all the great Kindle reading features, so we recommend browsing the reviews and ratings from other readers. Or choose deals for limited-time savings on thoughtfully selected books. Happy reading (and happy saving)."
ANU e-press
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Provides free access to digital versions of selected titles from the Australian National University Press. Print copies may be purchased, if desired.
Asian Classics Input Project
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This site was created digitally preserve and disseminating "Tibetan and Sanskrit manuscripts that hold the philosophical, cultural, and religious heritage of endangered cultures dating back more than 2000 years." Selected texts are provided in English.
Bartleby.com
access the classic fiction, nonfiction, and reference books online and free of charge
Bibliomania
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Access free e-books, poems, short stories, etc. The site also provides study guides, teacher resources, message boards, and reference works. Free registration is required to access most resources.
Bloomsbury Open Access
Book Bub
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"Looking for free ebooks? BookBub features limited-time offers for the best free books in over twenty genres, from both top-tier publishers and critically-acclaimed independent authors. These free ebooks are available on all devices, including Kindle, Nook, iPad, and Android."
British Library: Virtual Books
CABI Open Books
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"CABI (Centre for Agriculture and Biosciences International) is an international not-for-profit organization that improves people’s lives worldwide by providing information and applying scientific expertise to solve problems in agriculture and the environment. We are now able to support authors and collaborating organizations who wish to publish open access books across a wide range of subject areas within the applied life sciences and tourism."
Cornell Open
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Access to classic out of print titles published by the Cornell University Press.
De Gruyter Open Access
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"De Gruyter is the largest independent academic publisher of open access books, and more than 1000 open access books are available on degruyter.com" Also includes De Gruyter's open access journals.
Directory of Open Access Books
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"The directory is open to all publishers who publish academic, peer reviewed books in Open Access and should contain as many books as possible, provided that these publications are in Open Access and meet academic standards."
DjVu Editions
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Classic works of literature available in DjVu format as well as in PDF.
Dr. Widger's Library
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"A collection of copyright-expired and generally out-of-print books from my library which I have scanned, proofed and submitted to Project Gutenberg for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. They may be copied or published with or without credit to either myself or Project Gutenberg under the terms and minimal restrictions outlined in the headers of each individual file."
Emory Women Writers Resource Project
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"The Emory Women Writers Resource Project is a collection of edited and unedited texts by women writing from the seventeenth century through the early twentieth century. "
FeedBooks
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Access to public domain books on a variety of topics. Includes both fiction and non-fiction titles.
Getty Publications Virtual Library
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Free digital backlist titles from the Getty Publications Archives
Google Books
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Google's book digitization project provides access to a vast online collection of books, many are completely full-text. Others are limited to a preview or publication information only.
To limit the search to only items with the full view, use the the Free Google ebooks link on the left side of the screen after completing a search or use the advanced search and select Full View
Google Play ebook store - Top Free Ebooks
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The Google Play store provides access to free books; start with this page of the Top free ebooks that are available and search for more. After searching for a book or author or keyword use the price option to select free.
Gutenberg-e
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"Columbia University Press is pleased to announce that Gutenberg-e is now an open access site. These award winning monographs, coordinated with the American Historical Association, afford emerging scholars new possibilities for online publications, weaving traditional narrative with digitized primary sources, including maps, photographs, and oral histories. The American Council of Learned Societies also carry Gutenberg-e titles on their Humanities E-Book platform."
HathiTrust Digital Library
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HathiTrust was conceived as a collaboration of the thirteen universities of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation and the University of California system to establish a repository for these universities to archive and share their digitized collections. Many of the collections are publicly accessible. Collections can be searched or browsed.
International Children's Digital Library
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"The ICDL Foundation's goal is to build a collection of books that represents outstanding historical and contemporary books from throughout the world. Ultimately, the Foundation aspires to have every culture and language represented so that every child can know and appreciate the riches of children's literature from the world community."
Internet Archive
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This site contains a variety of collections including full text books, movies, and audio, software, and educational resources in addition to the WayBack Machine.
JSTOR Open Access eBooks
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"The ebooks, which reflect JSTOR’s high standards for quality content, are freely available for anyone in the world to use. Each ebook carries one of six Creative Commons licenses determined by the publisher. The titles are easy to use, with no DRM restrictions and no limits on chapter PDF downloads or printing. Users will not need to register or log in to JSTOR."
Kobo
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The online books store Kobo provides access to a selection of free e-books as well as items for purchase.
Library of Congress - Rare Book Selections
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"The digitized selections offered here represent a few of the most interesting and important items in the collection, including a copy of the Gutenberg Bible, Thomas Jefferson’s copy of The Federalist, medieval manuscripts, books relating to cookery, children's literature, and many more."
Luminos
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"Luminos is University of California Press’ new Open Access publishing program for monographs. With the same high standards for selection, peer review, production and marketing as our traditional program, Luminos is a transformative model, built as a partnership where costs and benefits are shared."
Manchester Openhive
ManyBooks.net
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Free e-books available for download in a variety of formats.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art - Titles with full-text online
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"Five decades of Met publications on art history, available to read, download, and/or search for free."
NCBI BookShelf
O'Reilly Open Books Project
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Access O'Reilly Publishings Open Books--"books with various forms of "open" copyright".
OAPEN
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"The OAPEN Library contains freely accessible academic books, mainly in the area of Humanities and Social Sciences. OAPEN works with publishers to build a quality controlled collection of Open Access books, and provides services for publishers, libraries and research funders in the areas of dissemination, quality assurance and digital preservation."
Online Books Page
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"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." The site was developed and is maintained by John Mark Ockerbloom of the Univeristy of Pennsylvania. The site provides an index to over 20,000 works in various formats available on the internet. It also includes a list of links to large, general, mostly English language digitzed collections.
Online Library of Liberty
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"The Library is where electronic versions of classic books about individual liberty are stored. These texts go back some 4,000 years and cover the disciplines of economics, history, law, literature, philosophy, political theory, religion, war and peace." Items are provided free of charge for educational use.
Open Book: National Academies Press
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A collection that provides access to hundreds of e-books for free. Others can be purchased from the site. Available topics are: Agriculture, Behavioral & Social Sciences, Biology & Life Sciences, Computers & Information Technology, Conflict & Security Issues, Earth Sciences, Education, Energy & Energy Conservation, Engineering & Technology, Environment & Environmental Studies, Food & Nutrition, Health & Medicine, Industry & Labor, Math, Chemistry & Physics, Science: Past & Future, Space & Aeronautics, Transportation & Infrastructure, and Policy for Science & Technology. Browse through these categories or use the search engine.
Open Book Publishers
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"At Open Book Publishers we are changing the nature of the traditional academic book. Our books are published in hardback, paperback and ebook editions, but we also publish free online editions of every title in PDF, HTML and XML formats that can be read via our website, downloaded, reused or embedded anywhere. We are proud to say that our books are currently being accessed freely worldwide by over 20,000 readers each month. "
OpenCulture
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Provides access to "The best free cultural & educational media on the web." It includes films & videos, ebooks & audiobooks, online courses, etc. It covers a wide variety of topics.
Open Library
Open Square
Palace Bookshelf (Digital Public Library of America)
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"As part of DPLA’s core mission of maximizing access to our shared culture, DPLA is aggregating openly-licensed books and making them available to libraries. Open Bookshelf is a digital library collection of popular books free to download, formatted for modern devices, and handpicked by a Curation Corps of librarians from across the US."
Project Gutenberg
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Free ebooks in a variety of formats available for download. The focus is on older works for which U.S. copyright has expired.
Project Gutenberg Self Publishing Press
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"In general, this Project is focused on the authors who wish to share their works with readers.

In particular, this Project is our Self-Publishing Press for eBooks presumed NOT to be in the public domain, but whose copyright holder is wiling to allow limited access to readers for personal study and non-commercial sharing."
Standard Ebooks
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"The Standard Ebooks project is a volunteer driven, not-for-profit effort to produce a collection of high quality, carefully formatted, accessible, open source, and free public domain ebooks that meet or exceed the quality of commercially produced ebooks. The text and cover art in our ebooks is already believed to be in the public domain, and Standard Ebook dedicates its own work to the public domain, thus releasing whole ebooks files themselves into the public domain."
UCL Press (Open Access)
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"Established as the UK’s first fully open access university press in 2015, UCL Press has fast become one of the leading open access scholarly publishers in the UK, publishing both traditional peer-reviewed scholarly works and innovative research outputs. We currently publish 40 open access books a year in addition to 8 academic journals, and support UCL’s successful student journals programme."
UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004
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"UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004, is managed by the Publishing Group at the California Digital Library. As one of the University of California libraries, the CDL supports the assembly and creative use of the world's scholarship and knowledge for the UC libraries and the communities they serve. The Publishing Group program facilitates innovation and experimentation in the production and dissemination of scholarly works.

Almost 2,000 electronic editions of academic books have been published online at the UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004, web site. All E-Books in the collection are available for free to UC faculty, staff, and students. Additionally, more than 25 percent of the books are available for free to the public."
unglue.it
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"Unglue.it is a place for individuals and institutions to join together in support of free ebooks. We work together to support authors, publishers, or other rights holders who want their ebooks to be free. We work together to provide durable and effective distribution for ebooks that are free. We support Creative Commons licensing as an enabling tool to "unglue" the ebooks. We are part of the Free Ebook Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization." FAQ unglue.it
Universal Library via the Internet Archive
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"The Universal Library Project, sometimes called the Million Books Project, was pioneered by Jaime Carbonell, Raj Reddy, Michael Shamos, Gloriana St Clair, and Robert Thibadeau of Carnegie Mellon University."
WAC Clearinghouse
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Offers open-access, scholarly books, including original monographs and edited collections; publishes, hosts, or provides access to the archives for eight refereed, open-access journals
Wright American Fiction (1851-1875)
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"Lyle H. Wright, a librarian at the Huntington Library in San Marino, CA, created a bibliography of American fiction from the years 1851–1875, published as American Fiction 1851–1875: A Contribution Toward a Bibliography (San Marino, CA: The Huntington Library, 1957; revised 1965). He listed a total of 2,923 titles in adult fiction, including "novels, novelettes, romances, short stories, tall tales, tract-like tales, allegories, and fictitious biographies and travels, in prose" (from the introduction), and inventoried 18 American libraries for holdings. This compilation is part of his three-volume set listing American fiction from 1774 through 1900, and is considered the most comprehensive bibliography of American adult fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries."

Audio Books

Audiobooks in the Trible Library Catalog
Off campus access to online audiobooks in the Trible Library catalog is only available to current CNU students, faculty and staff.

Free audiobook sites

Trible Library provides links to other websites to aid in research and is not responsible for the content or privacy policy of those sites.

Please be sure to read information regarding use of the audiobooks, app downloads, and/or account creation.

Ask your local public library about accessing books through systems such as Libby and Hoopla!

Public Libraries in Virginia
The library of Virginia maintains a list of public libraries in Virginia - many provide access to ebooks and streaming audio and video content!
Audible - Free listens
Bookshare
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Bookshare® is available only for individuals who have a qualifying reading or perceptual disability, a visual impairment, or a physical disability that affects their ability to read printed works. Users Must sign up.
FREE for qualified U.S. students; low annual fee for adults
Chirp - Free Audiobooks
"Looking for great audiobooks without breaking the bank? Browse our selection of free audiobooks and download your next listen at no cost. From romance to thrillers to nonfiction titles, these audiobooks from Chirp are completely free. Stream using our web player or download the Chirp mobile app (Apple | Android) to listen anywhere."
Internet Archive Audio
The internet archive offers access to many types of audio materials, including audiobooks.
LibriVox
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Free audio versions of public domain works. Volunteers make the recordings. The audio files can be downloaded or listened to via streaming audio.
Lit2Go
"Lit2Go is a free online collection of stories and poems in Mp3 (audiobook) format. An abstract, citation, playing time, and word count are given for each of the passages. Many of the passages also have a related reading strategy identified. Each reading passage can also be downloaded as a PDF and printed for use as a read-along or as supplemental reading material for your classroom."
LoudLit.org
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Delivers public domain literature paired with high quality audio performances.
NLS: National Library Service for the Blind and Print Disabled
Open Culture's Fee Audio Books
"Download hundreds of free audio books, mostly classics, to your MP3 player or computer."
The Project Gutenberg Open Audiobook Collection
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"Project Gutenberg, Microsoft, and MIT have worked together to create thousands of free and open audiobooks using new neural text-to-speech technology and Project Gutenberg's large open-access collection of e-books. This project aims to make literature more accessible to (audio) book-lovers everywhere and democratize access to high quality audiobooks.

Primary Sources Home: E-Books

Subscription E-Books

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Free E-Book Sites

Audio Books