Research Guides: eBooks: Home

DRM

Digital Rights Management (DRM) refers to rules media vendors put on a user's ability to save, share, or otherwise copy items from their media collections. DRM may also include a limit on the number of users who can access the items simultaneously. Each media collection has different DRM rules, look to their help pages to find out.

Critics' Choice and Children's Collections

Our Critics' Choice collection includes new, well reviewed, fiction and nonfiction titles. Our Children's Collection includes fiction and nonfiction books for Ages 0-18. Many are available in e-book or audiobook formats. You can access them through Libby to read or listen on your own device. (Critics' Choice print books are located in the lobby of the library, Children's are on the 2nd floor.)

Search the Library Catalog for eBooks

eBooks are digital books, some of which you read on the Web, and some which are available for download either to your computer or to e-readers such as a Kindle. Most of these collections are subscribed to by CSULB, so you will need a CSULB ID to use them. Some are free to the public.

All CSULB ebooks can be found in OneSearch.

OneSearch (library catalog)

Some eBook collections

ACLS Humanities E-Book Project This link opens in a new window Is a digital collection of over 1,700 full text searchable e-books of recommended by humanities scholars.
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Skillsoft This link opens in a new window Also includes IT and Desktop Video collection. Full text of IT books on hundreds of different technology topics. Includes books from premier industry publishers, such as Wrox, McGraw-Hill, and Microsoft Press as well as popular book series, such as The Complete Reference, Inside Out, and Bibles. Allows up to 6 simultaneous users. Formerly called Books 24/7.
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Ebook Central (from ProQuest) This link opens in a new window More than 80,000 academic e-books in 16 subject categories (Formerly called eBrary)
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eBook Collection from EBSCO This link opens in a new window Full-text, searchable electronic books. Books can only be read online. However, mindful of copyright laws, texts may be printed out or copied in part using browser functions. Coverage: Most books are pre-2003. Also provides access to 3,500 older, "public domain" works that may be several hundred years old.
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Gale eBooks Reference Library This link opens in a new window A collection of about 900 encyclopedias and other reference books from several publishers across many disciplines that can be searched at one time.
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Knovel (Engineering eBook Collection) This link opens in a new window Knovel delivers a collection of engineering handbooks and reference sources in the following subject areas: aerospace and radar technology, civil engineering and construction materials, composites, electrical & power engineering, general engineering and project management. Features include full text searching and interactive tables and graphs. Note: we do not have access to the entire database only the collections mentioned above. Create your own personal account – click My Knovel at the top of the screen.
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Libby (previously Overdrive) This link opens in a new window Popular ebooks and audiobooks that you can read and listen to through the Libby app on your personal device.
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Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new window More than 2 million entries from hundreds of cross-searchable Oxford encyclopedias and other reference books, many of which are illustrated.
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O'Reilly Learning This link opens in a new window O'Reilly Learning is a collection of over 2000 full text, searchable e-books from O' Reilly, Que, Sams, Addison-Wesley, Prentice Hall and Peachpit Press covering computing, databases, operating systems, programming, XML, Java and web design, as well as a broad range of business topics. Covers: Current year plus two previous calendar years. Formerly called Safari Tech Books Online.
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Detailed instructions for accessing the O'Reilly database.
Thesaurus Linguae Graecae This link opens in a new window Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG) is a digital library of Greek literature which has collected and digitized most literary texts written in Greek from Homer to the fall of Byzantium in AD 1453. Its goal is to create a comprehensive digital library of Greek literature from antiquity to the present era.
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*Individual registration required*

Free Books Online

Many of the free books online are public domain, including titles published before 1923 and U.S. government documents.

HathiTrust
Access to over 2 million volumes in the public domain.
Limit to "Full view" only.
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Limit to "Full view only" to search for books available with full-text online.

HathiTrust is an effort by major universities to digitize and preserve library materials and the cultural record.
Online Books Page
Links to over 1 million titles available freely online.
Project Gutenburg
Full-text of over 33,000 books in the public domain.
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Free from copyright restrictions, includes mostly works published prior to 1923.
Google Books
On the search results screen, limit to "free Google eBooks."
Bartleby.com
Literature, reference, verse, and more
Directory of Open Access Books
Includes books worldwide from university presses, scholarly publishers.