If your semester has just commenced and your campus library is already out of textbooks, then you’d probably be planning to search for them in the market or already have gone through the shock of getting to know their exorbitant prices. It is a sad reality that the prices of most textbooks, these days, are out of the reach of students. Hence, a good number of students, especially those attending universities, pursue their education without textbooks, despite being aware of their usefulness. But, there are some platforms that offer free textbooks on a varied range of subjects and can be valuable resources for students.
Trusted websites to get Free Textbooks
Following are some of the sites where you can get free textbooks and easily use them to excel in your academia.
Library Genesis
Library Genesis or Libgen is a file-sharing-based shadow library website that provides free textbooks, general-interest books, scholarly journal articles, images, comics, audiobooks, and magazines. This site enables free access to content that is otherwise paywalled or not digitized elsewhere. It also gives access to copyrighted works such as articles from journal papers. You can find books on topics ranging from science and medicine to housekeeping and arts. Although it does not have an interactive user interface, you can still greatly benefit from this website by getting free textbooks.
Open Textbook Library
Supported by the Open Education Network, this online platform gives access to licensed free textbooks. It provides open textbooks that are free for anyone to use and change. These textbooks can be printed or used in digital format. You are even allowed to modify the open textbooks. It is currently providing over 1000 free textbooks on almost 12 broad fields ranging from Engineering and Computer Science to Social Sciences and Journalism. These free textbooks are supported by the community of the Open Education Network.
Project Gutenberg
Having the crown of being the oldest digital library, Project Gutenberg was founded in 1971 and has been growing ever since. Its founder Michael S. Hart hailed as the inventor of e-books has described his mission statement as to “encourage the creation and distribution of e-books”. With this platform, you don’t need any fee or registration. From its huge library has over 60,000 books you can get access to various types of books including fiction, non-fiction, and even free textbooks.
Bookboon
As the name suggests Bookboon is there to help students get easy access to books. You can benefit from about 1000 free textbooks, available on this site. Having a user-friendly interface, this site can be especially useful for engineering students since it has a wide range of books on specialized engineering subjects. These textbooks can be downloaded in pdf format. Bookboon believes in providing university students access to free textbooks. Besides free textbooks, you can also get books on topics related to personal development and productivity.
SolutionInn
If you like to study the old-fashioned way by holding a book in your hand but balk at the hefty price tag of hard copies of textbooks, then there is good news for you. SolutionInn provides students with pre-loved hard copies of textbooks, free of cost. They even bear the shipping cost. Whether you are looking for a textbook related to engineering or English literature, you can find a large variety of free textbooks on this online platform. You can also find expert tutors on this site if you need help in your studies.
Final Comments
Having textbooks is a sine qua non for a better understanding of your subject and for getting good grades. But, due to the astronomical prices of textbooks, most students do not have access to them. However, by knowing about some of the platforms like the ones mentioned in this blog, you can have access to free textbooks and thrive in your academic career.
