Research Guides: Using eBooks: eBook Collections

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If you have eBook questions or require assistance, please view common FAQs on the eBook LibAnswers page or contact our acquisitions department at libcshelp@umd.edu.

Multi-Disciplinary e-Book Collections

UMD Libraries provides access to other eBook collections besides the largest five collections listed in the Downloading eBooks section of this guide. Listed below are a few more smaller general eBook collections. If you are looking for a subject-specific eBook collection, you may check Database Finder, or contact your librarian for assistance.

ABC-CLIO Ebooks
Online full-text reference books published by ABC-CLIO
Early English Books Online
Database of most imprints (books, pamphlets, and broadsides) published in English anywhere or published in any language in English-speaking countries, appearing from 1473 to 1700. One can search the full ASCII text of selected* documents and view both the text and the corresponding original page images. Useful for research in all subject areas during the early modern period. Also helpful to study the history of books and printing.
Gale Virtual Reference Library
Gale Virtual Reference Library offers more than 85 reference sources including encyclopedias, almanacs, series, and more.
Offering access to more than 300 encyclopedias and selected industry-standard reference series. Including content from SAGE Reference, John Wiley & Sons, Cambridge University Press, Berkshire Publishing Group, Cartographica, Linworth and Gale imprints.
IEEE/Wiley eBooks
The collection of titles includes practical handbooks, introductory and advanced texts, reference works and professional books with an emphasis on leading areas of research, such as Aerospace; Bioengineering; Communication, Networking & Broadcasting; Components, Circuits, Devices & Systems; Computing & Processing (Includes Hardware & Software); Engineered Materials, Dielectrics & Plasmas; Fields, Waves & Electromagnetics; General Topics for Engineers (Math, Science & Engineering); Geoscience; Photonics & Electro-Optics; Power, Energy & Industry Applications; Robotics & Control Systems; Signal Processing & Analysis.
All books through 2023

JSTOR
Integrates both journal and ebook content in humanities, social sciences and the sciences. To narrow your search to ebooks on the JSTOR platform, select "Advanced Search" from the JSTOR home screen and then limit results to books.

ProQuest Ebook Central
Ebrary is a collection of thousands of online full text books and other materials in a variety of subject areas. In order to view, copy, or print you will need to install the ebrary Reader software. Links to download the reader are available from the main page after you connect. Truncation is not supported. Searches in ISSN, ISBN, and Year are done as Text searches. All searches report 'Hits were found' rather than the number of hits. Boolean NOT and OR searches are not supported.
Sage Reference Collection
Online versions of published reference works from SAGE. A great place to begin your research.

Open Access e-Book Collections and Portals

The following list of eBooks are Open Access, which means you can access them online for free, even if you are not affiliated with UMD.

Center for Research Libraries Digital Collections
Center for Research Libraries (CRL) digitizes materials from our collections to support research and teaching. Collections include: African Newspapers, American Periodicals, Brazilian Government Documents, Chinese Pamphlets: Political Communication & Mass Education, Digital Library for International Research, Digital South Asia Library, Dziennik Zwiazkowy, Latin American Newspapers, LLMC-Digital, Pamphlets and Periodicals of the French Revolution of 1848, Slavery and Manumission Manuscripts of Timbuktu, South Asian Newspapers, TRAIL - Technical Report Archive & Image Library.
Directory of Open Access Books
DOAB provides discovery and access to academic, peer reviewed Open Access books.
Google Books
Provides access to millions of digital books. Some public domain or out of copyright books are available full-text, and others are available to preview. Contains a reference page for each book which includes reviews, related books, and more.

HathiTrust Digital Library
NOTE: Download of full book PDF files may require login with University ID. A shared, growing digital repository of millions of books and periodical volumes scanned from major research libraries, including those digitized by institutional effort and by both Google and the Internet Archive. Offers full-text searching and advanced bibliographic search capabilities (such as author, title, publisher, language, etc.), and full PDF downloading of works in the public domain. One feature includes the ability to select and place items from the database into a tailor made collection that may be kept private to the user or shared publicly with others. Items that are saved to collections can be searched independently of the rest of the repository, allowing users to perform focused searches on subsets of HathiTrust materials.

Internet Archive: Texts
A wealth of digitized versions of many books are available including many Maryland documents. Books contributed by University of Maryland Libraries are at Ebook and Text Archive>University of Maryland, College Park
The Online Books Page
More than 30,000 free books on the Web. (UPenn)
Open Library
Provided by the Internet Archive, Open Library contains over a million public domain eBooks. Books can be read in a browser or downloaded and read offline.
Project Gutenberg
Provides free access to over 25,000 books in its catalog and links to affiliated projects.
UC Press E-Books Collection, 1982-2004
Includes almost 2000 books from academic presses on a range of topics, including art, science, history, music, religion, and fiction. More than 500 of the titles are available to the public.