Open Textbooks
- Writing Spaces by a number of writing instructors with separate downloadable chapters (undated, work in progress)
- Literature, the Humanities and Humanity by Theodore L. Steinberg (2014)
- Creating Literary Analysis by Ryan Cordell and John Pennington
- Successful Writing by Scott McLean
- Writer’s Handbook (author’s name withheld by publisher)
Open Textbook Collections
- Ebooks Directory
- Searchable by keyword or topic.
- HathiTrust
- A collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world, including many of the great philosophy texts.
- Project Gutenberg
- Project Gutenberg offers thousands of free ebooks. Books can be searched by title or by category.
- Open Library searches a variety of sources for print and online books. Many ebooks are freely available for online reading or download.
Multimedia
- YouTube
- Search YouTube by keyterms and try filtering by channel or “Creative Commons” license (these videos are specifically labeled for reuse).
- Some good channels:
- YouTube-produced “CrashCourse” series
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- Tip: try searching YouTube by the title of your favorite journal publication to see if that journal also produces a YouTube channel.
- TED Talks – Books / Creativity / Culture / Feminism / Gender / Gender Equality / Humanity / Humor / Identity / Journalism / LGBT / Library / Literature / Media / Men / Novel / Performance / Poetry / Race / Self / Sex / Social Change / Social Media / Society / Spoken Word / Storytelling / TED Books / Transgender / Women / World Cultures / Writing
- A collection of TED Talks and playlists on Literature and related topics.
- Videos from the Stanford Humanities Center
- Videos through the CSUSM Library
- Select “Books & More” tab and use these limits: Full Text Available Online and Audio Visual.
- Library Media Reserves, including Video on Demand option (allows you to stream videos to CSUSM students). Keep in mind that you should leave at least 1 week of lead time for processing these requests.
- Podcasts
Ebooks in the Library
The CSUSM University Library has an extensive collection of ebooks on a variety of topics. To find what’s available:
- Go to the University Library homepage
- Choose “Books and More”
- Enter keywords and search
- Use the limiters to narrow by “Full Text Online” to ensure all results can be accessed directly from your computer
- Limit by “Books” to filter out journals and media
Journal Articles
Consider including journal articles as required or supplemental reading for your courses. Search through our literature and writing databases for articles. Just be sure to direct students to the article by permalink (or static URL) rather than posting the PDF directly in your Cougar Course. This will ensure two things: 1) that we are complying with copyright and publisher restrictions, and 2) that our journal usage is counted (this allows us to justify maintaining our subscriptions).
This page provides examples illustrating how to find permalinks in the Library’s databases.
Please contact your librarian if you are still unsure of how to find the permalink.
Other CSUSM Library Resources
More information about finding and using library resources can be found on the Literature & Writing Research Guide.
Suggestions
Have a good idea for a free resource? Tell us about it! Email your subject specialist.
Open Courseware
Merlot – Humanities
Searchable by discipline and academic level, this site provides a broad range of instructional materials, including texts, images, videos, primary sources and more.
Other Open Educational Resources
Prize-Winning Books Online; an exhibit from The Online Books Page (University of Pennsylvania). Includes Newbery, Nobel, and Pulitzer Prize winning books that are either out of copyright or available online with the permission of the author.
The Shelley-Godwin Archive