Library Guides: Zero Cost Textbook Program: Finding & Selecting OER Materials

OER Repositories

Here is a list of trusted OER repositories you can explore when looking for open textbook alternatives to replace commercial textbooks. These repositories vary in size and content, but they all contain open textbooks that can be used wholly or combined with other materials to create a customized textbook. Not sure where to start? We recommend looking at OpenStax, Open Textbook Library, or Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons for high-enrollment courses.

OpenStax
Includes open textbooks for high-enrollment college courses using the Connexions platform.
Open Textbook Library
A growing catalog of free, peer-reviewed, and openly-licensed textbooks.
Open Educational Resources (OER) Commons
Open teaching and learning materials, including full university courses, interactive mini-lessons, simulations, and electronic textbooks.
COOL4Ed
Offers California State University's curated lists by discipline of open textbooks from Merlot and other sources.
Open Course Library
Textbooks, syllabi, assessments for 81 high-enrollment college courses created by a Washington State Board for Community & Technical Colleges (SBCTC) grant.
Teaching Commons
Curated by librarians and their institutions, the Teaching Commons includes high-quality open educational resources such as textbooks, course materials, lesson plans, multimedia, and more. Discover content by type of work or subject.
Open Book Publishers
A scholarly operation committed to making high-quality research available to readers around the world, including a growing collection of monographs and textbooks in all areas.
LibreText Commons
Platform for creating, customizing, and sharing accessible, interactive textbooks, adaptive homework, and ancillary materials. 
OhioLINK Open Course Content Library
Examine OER materials curated for high-enrollment courses in Ohio.
Mason OER Metafinder
Searches sixteen collections of open resources in real-time, returning the top several hundred or so relevant hits from each site.
MERLOT
A searchable database of tens of thousands of  discipline-specific learning materials, learning exercises, and Content Builder web pages, together with associated comments, and bookmark collections.
OASIS
(Openly Available Sources Integrated Search) includes the ability to limit search results by license, type, subject, source, and reviews available.
B.C. Open Collection
Course materials for educators. Find free, open, and customizable materials by course or subject.
OpenRN
All Open RN materials have CC-BY 4.0 Creative Commons licensing. Open RN textbooks are published in Pressbooks where they are free and accessible in online or downloadable formats. The textbooks are also uploaded to LibreTexts where they can easily be "remixed" by faculty and aligned to their curriculum.

University Libraries

Zero Cost Textbook Program

OER Repositories

OHIO UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES