On this page, you can read more about the following:
There are many platforms that contain ebooks from particular disciplines. Click here to find all ebook collections to which Queen's University provides you with access.
Or, to find ebook collections that cover a specific subject, follow these instructions:
- Go to the Queen's Library Homepage
- Select Databases
- Select Advanced Search
- Select 'eBooks' from the Database Type drop-down menu
- Choose a subject from the Subjects drop-down menu
There are several interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary ebook platforms. Each one contains ebooks on many subjects, and it's possible to find the same ebook on more than one of these platforms. The platforms differ from one another in whether or not an ebook must be borrowed, and how much of an ebook can be printed or downloaded. They can also differ in the variety of features they offer such as exporting citations, highlighting sections, and saving annotations. Read our Ebook Features page for more information.
You can search these platforms separately from Omni by going directly to the platform homepage. Some examples include:
- ACLS Humanities E-book – Full-text, searchable access to over 2,800 books of high quality across the humanities. Includes in- and out-of-print titles.
- ProQuest Ebook Central – Ebooks from a variety of disciplines published by University Presses and other top publishers.
- Taylor and Francis
- EBSCOhost Ebook Collection – High quality ebook titles from major academic publishers and university presses from around the world.
- Oxford Scholarship Online – Quality ebook titles published by Oxford University Press in 20 subject areas, covering the humanities, social sciences, sciences, medicine, and law.
- Scholars Portal Books – Ebooks from commercial publishers (such as Springer, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Elsevier), Canadian publishers, government and non-governmental organizations.
- Cambridge Books
- De Gruyter
There are many free ebooks on the Internet, many of which are in the public domain. Ebooks that are in the public domain can be downloaded for free because their copyright period has expired. To find free ebooks, try a Google search for the title of the book + the word 'download'. For example, the Google search, 'Call of the Wild download' retrieves several free versions of Jack London's classic work in electronic format.
Here is a list of ebook providers that offer free ebooks that are in the public domain:
- Project Gutenberg – Over 54,000 free eBooks. You will find the world's great literature here, especially older works for which copyright has expired.
- PubMed Bookshelf - Provides free online access to books and documents in life science and healthcare.
- Gutenberg Canada – Offers ebooks that are in the Canadian public domain – in other words, books for which it has been more than 50 years after the end of the year of the author's death.
- Internet Archive – A non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, and more.
- HathiTrust – A digital repository of scanned books, journals, and other library materials. All users may access the bibliographic information for materials in the database. In addition, full text is viewable for "Full View" (public domain and open access) materials. NOTE: the ebooks in this collection are scanned copies of the original print.
- ManyBooks – Offers both free ebooks and ebooks for purchase. Free ebooks are generally public domain titles.
