Open Access Databases
Free Full-Text Databases:
- CERN Document Server – CERN offers full-text preprints, articles, books, journals, and other documents of interest to persons working in particle physics and its related areas.
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) – Quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals covering all subjects and languages.
- EUR-Lex – a service providing legal texts of the European Union on its official website europa.eu. Replacing the earlier service CELEX, EUR-Lex provides direct free access to European Union law. The system makes it possible to consult the Official Journal of the European Union and it includes inter alia the treaties, legislation, case-law and legislative proposals. It offers extensive search facilities.
- EUROPA – the official website of the European Union. The EU is one of the largest publishers of online information in the world. Access the register of documents of the EU institutions for all official EU documents.
- Guide to Open Access Journals – looks at some of the most reputable open-access journal websites, as well as paid subscription databases that are still widely used by traditional college students.
- Highwire Press – Major source of free access to high impact, peer-reviewed life sciences journals on the internet sponsored by Stanford University Libraries.
- Johns Hopkins APL Technical Digest – Published by the Johns Hopkins University – Applied Physics Laboratory, the journal focuses on “missile, radar, sonar, sensor, chemical biological, and information technologies; space science and engineering, microelectronics; communications; navigations; modeling and simulation; advanced research and technology development.”
- Labordoc – contains references to a wide range of print and electronic publications, including journal articles, from countries around the world, on all aspects of work and sustainable livelihoods, and the work-related aspects of economic and social development and human rights.
- Labordoc – contains references to a wide range of print and electronic publications, including journal articles, from countries around the world, on all aspects of work and sustainable livelihoods, and the work-related aspects of economic and social development and human rights.
- National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) – a leading nonprofit economic research organization. The Bureau concentrate on four types of empirical research: developing new statistical measurements, estimating quantitative models of economic behavior, assessing the economic effects of public policies, and projecting the effects of alternative policy proposals.
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – The NIST Data Gateway allows access to NIST scientific and technical data, encompassing a wide range of information pertaining to varied scientific disciplines and links to some free online NIST database and articles published in the journal of Journal of Physical and Chemical Reference Data (JPCRD).
- OpenThesis – is a free repository of theses, dissertations, and other academic documents, coupled with powerful search, organization, and collaboration tools.
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) – the official journal of the US National Academy of Sciences, which is an authoritative source of high-impact, original research that broadly spans the biological, physical, and social sciences.
- Scirus – a science-specific search engine – A comprehensive scientific research tool on the web, SCRIRUS provides search links to over 370 million scientific resources. These links enable researchers to access the journal content including scientists’ homepages, courseware, pre-print server materials, patents and institutional repositories and website information.
- Social Science Research Network – The SSRN e-Library contains abstracts of over 359,800 scholarly working papers and forthcoming papers and over 293,500 downloadable full-text documents in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. Composing of a number of specialized research networks in each of the social sciences, the e-Library also includes research papers of a number of Fee-Based Partner Publications.
- World dataBank: World Bank’s Open Data Initiative – Offers open and free access to over 2,000 financial, business, health, economic and human development data for more than 200 countries, with the data going back 50 years. Access to at least 20 World Bank Group databases, including World Development Indicators, Global Development Finance, Global Economic Monitor, Actionable Governance Indicators, Doing Business Database, Health, Nutrition and Population Statistics.
Free Access e-Books:
- Bartleby.com (http://www.bartleby.com/)Offers free full-text online access to “top quality books”, “thought provoking verses”, “romantic poems”, “famous quotes” or “new words to enrich your vocabulary”.
- EU Bookshop (http://bookshop.europa.eu/en/home/)An online bookshop and archive of publications from the European institutions. It is managed by the Publications Office of the European Union in Luxembourg.
- Free Computer Books (http://freecomputerbooks.com/)Powered by Google, here you will find some good free full-text online collection of computers, programming, mathematics, engineering, technical books, as well as lecture notes and tutorials.
- Free Tech Books (http://www.freetechbooks.com/)Quit recently published, it lists “free online computer science, engineering and programming books, textbooks and lecture notes, all of which are legally and freely available over the Internet”.
- Library of Economics and Liberty (http://www.econlib.org/index.html)A website dedicated to “advancing the study of economics, markets, and liberty”. It offers a “unique combination of resources for students, teachers, researchers, and aficionados of economic thought”.
- Read Print (http://www.readprint.com/)Here you can read online for free over 5000 classics books and 10,000 quotes written by best known authors from across the world.
Directory of Open Access Databases Thesis and Dissertations:
- Louisiana State University (http://etd.lsu.edu/cgi-bin/ETD-browse/browse)
- OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center (http://etd.ohiolink.edu/)
- Electronic Theses and Dissertations at Virginia Tech (http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/theses/)
- California Institute of Technology (http://thesis.library.caltech.edu/)
- West Virginia University (http://wvuscholar.wvu.edu:8881/R?RN=586654367)
- North Carolina State University Libraries (http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/ETD-db/ETD-search/search)
- University of Kentucky (http://archive.uky.edu/handle/10225/2)
- Brigham Young University (http://etd.byu.edu/collection.html)
Free Documentary Films:
- Top Documentary Films (http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/)This offers fully watchable documentaries and information on documentaries by quoting reviews from trusted sources.
E-journals:
- AccessMyLibrary (a service of Gale, a part of Cengage Learning, provides free access to over 30 million articles from top publications)
- American Libraries Online
- Ariadne (Journal of academic library networking from the UK Office of Library and Information Networking)
- College and Research Libraries
- Communications in Information Literacy (an open access refereed journal in information literacy)
- DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals
- D-Lib Magazine (focuses on digital library research and development
- Gateway for Free E-journals (700 Free E-journals covering Subjects like Business & Management, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, General Works, Health Sciences, Information Technology, Library Science, Life Sciences, Material Science, Mathematics, Media and Communication, Physics & Social Sciences)
- Information Research: an international electronic journal (an excellent research journal, published by the Dept. of Information Studies at the University of Sheffield)
- Information Today (“the only newspaper designed to meet the needs of the information professional”)
- Special Libraries (available in pdf format)
Online Theses:
- Australasian Digital Theses Program
- TEL (thèses-EN-ligne)Multidisciplinary Theses Server
- Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD)
- Proquest PQDT Open (provides the full text of open access dissertations and theses free of charge)
- SILS Electronic Theses and Dissertations (at the repository of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
- Theses Canada Portal
- Virginia Tech Electronic Theses and Dissertations Online
Online Videos:
- About.com:Videos (free online educational videos on a variety of topics)
- National Geographic Video
- University Videos (a list of over 25 universities that offer free video lectures to the public)
- UC Berkeley on Google Video (a wide variety of educational videos)
- Prelinger Archives (over 4000 educational videos of historical significance)
- Edutopia (a great collection of highly eclectic educational videos)
- Google Tech Talks (videos of Google-sponsored educational lectures and videos)
- Free Science Videos (for general science as well as computer science videos)
- How To Videos (eHow’s collection of how-to videos; anything from home to technology how-to’s)
Other Online Resources:
- Bibliography of Standards and Selected References Related to Preservation in Libraries
- BibMe (fast and easy bibliography maker in either the MLA, APA, Chicago, or Turabian format)
- Current Cites (an annotated bibliography of selected articles, books and digital documents on information technology)
- FastWeb: Scholarships, Financial Aids, and Colleges
- Fulltext Sources Online (a directory of publications accessible online in full text, listing 44,335 periodicals, newspapers, newsletters, newswires, and TV or radio transcripts)
- Preservation Websites at Academic Institutions
- Sage Reference Online
- SlideShare (“the best way to share your presentations with the world”)
- Southeast Asian Resources Online
- SurveyMonkey (a powerful tool to create professional online surveys quickly and easily)
- UNESCO. Information for All Programme (IFAP). Towards Information Literacy Indicators (PDF)
- World Digital Library (makes available on the Internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries and cultures around the world)
Free E-Books:
- Google eBookstore Look here for bestsellers, favorite classics, and more. Books are available in several formats, and you can also check out ratings and reviews from other users.
- Project Gutenberg Project Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to create and share e-books online. No registration or fee is required, and books are available in ePub, Kindle, HTML, and simple text formats.
- Open Library This library catalog is an open online project of Internet Archive and allows users to contribute books.
- Internet Archive The Internet Archive is a great go-to if you want access to historical and academic books.
- BookBoon The site offers more than 1,000 free e-books, it’s easy to navigate and best of all, you don’t have to register to download them.
- ManyBooks.net You have the option to browse by most popular titles, recent reviews, authors, titles, genres, languages, and more.
- Free eBooks From romance to mystery to drama, this website is a good source for all sorts of free e-books.
- LibriVox LibriVox is home to thousands of free audiobooks, including classics and out-of-print books.
- PDF Books World Literature, plays, poetry, and non-fiction texts are all available for you to download at your leisure.
- Feedbooks Feedbooks allow those that sign up for an account to download a multitude of free e-books that have become accessible via public domain, and therefore cost you nothing to access.
- International Digital Children’s Library You can find award-winning books that range in length and reading levels. There’s also a wide selection of languages available, with everything from English to Farsi.