Open Access Resources
Put simply, open access is the practice of publishing scholarly research and other academic
materials in a way that makes access to them barrier-free. Rather than having journal articles
locked behind pay-walls and course textbooks that cost students hundreds of dollars, open
access materials are available online, for free, and under licenses that provide users with the
ability to re-use the material in various ways.
The following resources provide a gateway to the world of open access materials for use in your
research and in your classroom:
Creative Commons General Search
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Creative Commons Search
http://search.creativecommons.org
Open Access Directories
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DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
http://www.doaj.org/
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
http://www.doabooks.org/doab
DMOZ (Open directory Project)
http://www.dmoz.org/
RULA Digital Repository:
http://library.ryerson.ca/collections/digital-commons/
Public Domain Directories
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Public Domain Material: Images, Audio, Scores, & Books (US)
http://www.ithacalibrary.com/sp/subjects/pubdom
Wikipedia Public Domain Resources (US)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_resources
Wikipedia Public Domain Image Resources (US)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Public_domain_image_resources
Open Course Search Engines
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edX
https://www.edx.org
MIT Open Courseware
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm
OCWConsortium Course Index
http://www.ocwconsortium.org/en/courses
OER Commons
http://www.oercommons.org/
Prepared by Michelle Schwartz, Learning & Teaching Office, & Ann Ludbrook, RULA
http://www.ryerson.ca/lt/
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Open Access Textbooks
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BC OpenED Textbooks (offers Canadian Faculty reviews)
http://open.bccampus.ca
Openstax College
http://openstaxcollege.org/
Open Textbook Library (University of Minnesota)
https://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/
SUNY Open Textbooks
http://textbooks.opensuny.org
The Orange Grove: Florida’s Digital Repository (listings for higher education)
http://florida.theorangegrove.org/og/access/hierarchy.do?topic=8dff349b-9c2f-07d0f24b-5d854bbc4812
Freetech Books (Computer Science books)
http://www.freetechbooks.com
OER Commons textbooks
https://www.oercommons.org/courses/material_types/textbooks
The Global Text Project
http://globaltext.terry.uga.edu/booklist?cat=title
Open Access University Presses
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Athabasca University Press (all titles, non-commercial use only)
http://www.aupress.ca/
University of Calgary Press (print copy for purchase, free PDF)
http://uofcpress.com/
MIT Press (select titles)
Ohio State University (selected Titles, non-commercial use only):
https://ohiostatepress.org/
E-Commons @ Cornell
http://ecommons.library.cornell.edu/handle/1813/62
E-Book Collections
Although some US material may not be considered public domain, you can link to any of these
resources, and much of the material may still be completely free of copyright restrictions.
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Project Gutenberg Canada
http://www.gutenberg.ca/
Project Gutenberg USA
http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
Hathi Trust Digital Library
http://www.hathitrust.org/
Internet Archive
http://archive.org/
Library of Congress, Manuscript Reading Room
http://www.loc.gov/rr/mss/
Perseus Digital Library Historic Collections (Classics)
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collections
University of Oxford Text Archive (Literature and Linguistics)
http://ota.ahds.ac.uk/
Prepared by Michelle Schwartz, Learning & Teaching Office, & Ann Ludbrook, RULA
http://www.ryerson.ca/lt/
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OApen Library (Humanities and Social Sciences, European focused)
http://oapen.org/home
Open Access Image Sources
The images found on these websites are either released under Creative Commons licenses or
are in the public domain.
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Google Images Search (usage rights - search using free to use and share options)
http://www.google.com/advanced_image_search
 Flickr Creative Commons (Flickr photos with CC licenses)
http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
 Flickr Commons (Flickr photos from participating archives and museums)
http://www.flickr.com/commons
 Pixabay (public domain other than Shutterstock watermarked images)
http://pixabay.com
 Wikimedia Commons
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
 Canadian Illustrated News
http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/cin/index-e.html
 Canadiana (public domain – check copyright statements)
http://www.canadiana.ca/en/heritage-project
 Early Images of Canada
http://www.nlc-bnc.ca/earlyimages/index-e.html
 US Government Images search
https://search.usa.gov/search/images?affiliate=usagov&query=
 NASA
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/imagegallery/index.html
 Library of Congress (please check copyright restrictions)
The LOC provides access to images either in the public domain or for educational use.
Examples of their image databases include:
o American Memory
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html
o Print and Photographs On-line Catalog (not all records have a digital file)
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/
o Geography & Maps
http://www.loc.gov/rr/geogmap/
Audio & Video Resources
Although some of these resources may not be completely open access, most can be used freely
for educational purposes.
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Youtube Creative Commons
https://www.youtube.com/user/creativecommons
Vimeo (list various licence terms)
https://vimeo.com/creativecommons
Open Video Project
http://www.open-video.org/
Ted Talks
Prepared by Michelle Schwartz, Learning & Teaching Office, & Ann Ludbrook, RULA
http://www.ryerson.ca/lt/
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http://www.ted.com/talks
Musopen (recordings and sheet music)
http://www.musopen.org/
Free Music Archive
http://freemusicarchive.org/
IMSLP Petrucci Music Library (Canada)
http://imslp.org
Software and Technology
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DiRT: A director of Digital Research Tools
http://dirtdirectory.org/
Wikipedia free and open source software packages
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_free_and_open-source_software_packages
Prepared by Michelle Schwartz, Learning & Teaching Office, & Ann Ludbrook, RULA
http://www.ryerson.ca/lt/
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