There are all types of databases – some for books, some for articles, some for newspapers, some for videos, and some for references. Some focus on controversies, and some specialize in a contiguous historical record. Many of these databases are expensive, costing many hundreds or thousands of dollars to license and use. That content does have a tremendous amount of value and authors need to be compensated for it.

However, many authors are willing to forgo any type of compensation, because they believe everyone should have access to this type of intellectual inquiry. So, a lot of writers make their work available for free on the internet. These are generally posted with an open access license, such as Creative Commons. It preserves the integrity of the author’s work, while making the result both free to read, and usually free to use.

The OAPEN Library and the Directory of Open Access Books are two free ebook databases that have recently been added to our indexes at IU East, and they include thousands of titles that are carefully vetted for academic rigor, and are good sources for any research you conduct. The OAPEN Foundation, which makes the DOAB available, is an international organization dedicated to open access book publishing, based at the National Library in The Hague (not surprisingly, you might notice that after English, one of the most common languages for these ebooks is Dutch).

They are easy to use – search or browse for your topic, title, or author; you can even search within the full text as in other ebook databases like Ebrary. Or, you can find them listed in our catalog, IUCAT, as you would any other book or ebook in our collection – follow the link to get the full text of the book. They can be conveniently downloaded in PDF.

These databases are strongest in the fields of social sciences and humanities, but there are books to support business, science, and nursing courses, too. Titles at your fingertips include such things as Making and Unmaking in Early Modern English Drama – Spectators, Aesthetics and Incompletion by Chloe Porter, Migrating into Financial Markets: How Remittances Became a Development Tool by Matt Bakker, The Historical Jesus and the Literary Imagination by Jennifer Stevens, Caring and Curing: Historical Perspectives on Women and Healing in Canada by Dianne Dodd, and From Darwinian Metaphysics towards Understanding the Evolution of Evolutionary Mechanisms – A Historical and Philosophical Analysis of Gene-Darwinism and Universal Darwinism by Momme von Sydow.

These databases can improve your classwork in any subject. Need help navigating them, or finding what you need? Ask us at iueref@iue.edu!