In this article, we’re going to talk about the best websites to download textbooks for free. Although, Registering and starting new classes or semester’s means you’ll get a long list of required textbooks which you will need to “get through” your courses.
Free textbooks sounds like a dream come true when you don’t want to spend money on a book that you’ll end up using just for a few chapters.
Free textbooks in PDF or any other format are now easily found as a good alternative in other not to spend much money on textbooks and still get a good grade.
The good news is that, now it’s easier to find your books since other students and non-profit organizations are creating networks of shared textbooks that are going to help you get through your academic journey.
Here at GadgetFlair, we know that you’re a student who sees their degree as a chance to prosper and advance in life. So that’s why in this article, we’re giving you the best websites to download textbooks for free.
Best Websites to Download Textbooks For Free
Library Genesis
Library Genesis is a file-sharing website not only for academic books, but scholarly articles, novels, comics, and magazines. They have an enormous catalog and are organized in a format similar to standard college libraries. Their download system is super easy. You can either look for a specific title or just look at what’s new.
Pros
- It’s more academically oriented and perfect for undergraduate and graduate textbooks.
- Library Genesis mainly focuses on scholars and the search engine is just simply great.
- It’s more specific in the filters are very familiar to those that you can find on an online library such as ISBN, author, title name and much more.
Cons
- Their web design is not the most user friendly.
- It can mislead new users into thinking the site is not periodically well updated, which is simply not true at all.
Open Textbook Library
This is another awesome website that offers students higher education and textbooks which is licensed by authors and publishers.
Textbooks are available for download as a PDF or EPUB and you can browse through various subject categories on the website like Mathematics, Business, Social Science, Computer Science, Engineering and many others.
Pros
- You don’t need an account to access any textbook.
- Fast Search engine interface.
- You can upload your own eBooks.
Bookboon
Bookboon is an online publishing company that also offers free books for students, its main focus on subjects related to engineering, so it might not be for everyone, but if you’re getting a degree in this field, this website will be perfect for you.
One of the best things is that you can find references for the most specific topics.
Pros
- They have large range of textbooks related to engineering from the most basic to the most specific ones.
- It’s just very easy to use and the search experience is clean and straightforward.
Cons
- You’re going to have to pay a subscription fee of $5.99 monthly.
Although, the free catalog is decent enough and you can access it, just by making an account and this accounts last for 30 days.
OpenStax
OpenStax is a nonprofit educational technology initiative based at Rice University. OpenStax has created peer-reviewed, openly-licensed textbooks which are available in PDF.
They offer varieties of textbooks on mathematics, physics, biology, social sciences, humanities, business, etc. Openstax has saved college students millions of dollars through the use of funding to produce high-quality, peer-reviewed textbooks.
Pros
- OpenStax books are kept up-to-date on an ongoing basis.
- Downloads are easy.
- No login required to download the textbooks.
Cons
- No search engine on the website in other to search for the particular textbooks you need.
Google Scholar
This is actually my favorite and one of the best site you can use to download textbooks for free in formats likes PDF.
Although this site is a search engine that specifically searches scholar literature and academic resources and in this site you can get whatever you are looking for like textbooks, projects, articles, etc.
Google scholar search engine are remarkable fast and accurate, this tool will help your students search for peer-reviewed articles easily.
Pros
- It’s easy to use.
- It’s remarkable fast in terms of searching speed.
Cons
- It’s a web search engine.
PDF Grab
This is another good website that offers textbooks for free. You can search for any textbook on this site either by ISBN or by the tittle. I like the fact that the interface of the sites is nice and its user friendly.
They have varieties of subject’s categories’ to choose from like Business, Computer, Engineering, Humanity, Law and so much more.
Pros
- No account required to access any of the textbooks.
- Web design is user friendly.
