When I try and find online publications of hard-to-find, old or expensive books that I can download, I go to archive.org. Now, the Public Books Database is cataloging titles of academic presses (mainly US), which it asserts have made hundreds of their titles freely accessible online in response to the disruption from the COVID-19 crisis to university classrooms and libraries which have been shuttered. The crisis disrupts not only teaching but one’s ability to access research materials. Public Books says they’ll be updating the list regularly as additional materials are made available. However some titles are available only through Project Muse.
BY SALVADOR I. AYALA CAMARILLO & JESS ENGEBRETSON
• University of California Press
• University Press of Colorado
• University of Illinois Press
• Johns Hopkins University Press
• University of Maryland Press
• Medieval Institute Publications
• University of Michigan Press
• University of Minnesota Press
• University of Missouri Press
• Monash University Publishing
• University of Nebraska Press
• University of North Carolina Press
• University of North Texas Press
• Northwestern University Press
• University of Pennsylvania Press
• University of South Carolina Press
• University of Virginia Press
• Wayne State University Press
• University of the West Indies Press
UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA PRESS
University of Arizona Press has made over six hundred books available for free until the end of June on Project MUSE. Book subjects include border studies, environmental science, Latinx studies, Indigenous studies, poetry, space science, and other topics.
Highlights
- Reading Popol Wuj: A Decolonial Guide, by Nathan C. Henne
- Divided Peoples: Policy, Activism, and Indigenous Identities on the U.S.-Mexico Border, by Christina Leza
- How “Indians” Think: Colonial Indigenous Intellectuals and the Question of Critical Race Theory, by Gonzalo Lamana
BERGHAHN BOOKS
Berghahn Books publishes scholarly journals and books in the humanities and social sciences. They have made their e-books free with code REMOTE20.
Highlights
- America Observed: On an International Anthropology of the United States, edited by Virginia Dominguez and Jasmin Habib
- Changes in the Air: Hurricane in New Orleans from 1718 to the Present, by Eleanora Rohland
- Divining History: Prophetism, Messianism, and the Development of the Spirit, by Jayne Svenunggson, translated by Stephen Donovan
BRISTOL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Bristol University Press offers open access to over 30 books and various journal articles on gender, politics, social work, and other topics. The press has also expanded access to its digital books catalog and extended trials for all its journals.
Highlights (Books)
- Britishness, Belonging, and Citizenship, by Devyani Prabhat
- Justice in the Digital State, by Joe Tomlinson
- Basic Income Experiments: Theory, Practice, and Politics, by Jurgen De Wispelaere and Evelyn Forget
Highlights (Journals)
UNIVERSITY OF CALGARY PRESS
The University of Calgary Press open-access books collection includes over 90 texts, on topics including ecology, literature, Canadian history, education, and diaspora studies.
Highlights
- Mobilizing Global Knowledge: Refugee Research in an Age of Displacement, edited by Susan McGrath and Julie E. E. Young
- Environmental Activism on the Ground: Small Green and Indigenous Organizing, edited by Jonathan Clapperton and Liza Piper
- Protest and Democracy, edited by Moisés Arce and Roberta Rice
- Secession and Separatist Conflicts in Postcolonial Africa, by Charles G. Thomas and Toyin Falola (available May 2020)
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
All online journal content is free through June 2020.
Highlights
UNIVERSITY PRESS OF COLORADO
In addition to making An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stories Shape Our Perception of Disease and The Kiss of Death: Contagion, Contamination, and Folklore available for free on its site, the University Press of Colorado has partnered with Project MUSE to make 351 books available for free until the end of June. Its books cover topics such as anthropology, art history, folklore studies, medical science, nature and the environment, sociology, and psychology.
Highlights
- Archaeology of the Night: Life After Dark in the Ancient World, by Nancy Gonlin and April Nowell
- Objects of Survivance: A Material History of the American Indian School Experience, by Lindsay M. Montgomery and Chip Colwell
- Anthropomorphic Imagery in the Mesoamerican Highlands: Gods, Ancestors, and Human Beings, by Brigitte Faugère and Christopher Beekman
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Columbia University Press offers students whose classes have moved online free access to a selection of eTextbooks via VitalSource. Students should register with VitalSource here in order to access materials via an app. Texts will be available through May 25 in the US and April 30 in Canada.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
In partnership with Project MUSE, Cornell University Press has made over two thousand books available for free online, covering anthropology, Asian studies, classics, history, literary criticism and theory, politics and international relations, sociology, urban studies, and much more. The press has also made the following journals available: Indonesia, New York History, and Research in Outdoor Education. Texts are available through the end of June.
Highlights
- Last Subway: The Long Wait for the Next Train in New York City, by Philip Mark Plotch
- Take Back Our Future: An Eventful Sociology of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement, edited by Ching Kwan Lee and Ming Sing
- Violating Peace: Sex, Aid, and Peacekeeping, by Jasmine-Kim Westendorf
DUKE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Duke University Press has made 44 journals available, including American Literature, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies, and Social Text.
ETC PRESS
Carnegie Mellon University’s ETC Press publishes books with a focus on games, media and technology, and education. Their entire catalogue is open access and available for PDF download here.
Highlights
- Video Games and the Global South, edited by Phillip Penix-Tadsen
- Ludoliteracy, by José P. Zagal
- Gameplay, Emotions, and Narrative, by Katarzyna Marak, Miłosz Markocki, and Dariusz Brzostek
FORDHAM UNIVERSITY PRESS
Fordham University Press has made selected books and journals available for free on Project MUSE. Over nine hundred books covering art and architecture, business and economics, literary studies, performing arts, psychology, religion, and other subjects can be accessed until June 30. The journal Joyce Studies Annual has been made available as well.
Highlights
- The Disposition of Nature: Environmental Crisis and World Literature, by Jennifer Wenzel
- Pragmatism, Rights, and Democracy, by Beth J. Singer
- Crimmigrant Nations: Resurgent Nationalism and the Closing of Borders, by Robert Koulish
UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA PRESS
The University of Georgia Press has made all of its books available for free on Project MUSE until the end of June.
Highlights
- Medical Bondage: Race, Gender, and the Origins of American Gynecology, by Deirdre Cooper Owens
- Bodies in Blue: Disability in the Civil War North, by Sarah Handley-Cousins
- Red States: Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, and Southern Studies, by Gina Caison
- Pushing Back: Women of Color–Led Grassroots Activism in New York City, by Ariella Rotramel
UNIVERSITY OF HAWAI‘I PRESS
In addition to keeping more than three thousand titles in print, University of Hawai‘i Press has a growing list of content available online. As of 2017, all UHP journals may be read electronically through individual or institutional platforms. The Press has also made strides with new open-access content, e-books, and digital archives.
Highlights (Journals)
- Language Documentation and Conservation
- Palapala: A Journal for Hawaiian Language and Literature
- Asian Perspectives: The Journal of Archaeology for Asia and the Pacific
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS PRESS
Nineteen University of Illinois Press journals are available for free on Project MUSE until the end of June, including American Music, Journal of Sport History, and Feminist Teacher. For those with institutional access via JSTOR, the press has made available over one thousand e-books. Learn more about UIP’s offerings here.
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
Indiana University Press is offering open access to over 50 journals. Subjects include folklore, education, earth science, anthropology, and more.
Highlights (Journals)
JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Johns Hopkins University Press is offering open access to over 1,600 books and journals on Project MUSE until the end of May.
Highlights
- Miseducation: A History of Ignorance-Making in America and Abroad, edited by A. J. Angulo
- Comparison: Theories, Approaches, Uses, edited by Rita Felski and Susan Stanford Friedman
- The Resilience of the Latin American Right, edited by Juan Pablo Luna and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser
LEVER PRESS
The fully open-access Lever Press has seven books available.
Complete List
- Promissory Notes: On the Literary Conditions of Debt, by Robin Truth Goodman
- Make It New: Reshaping Jazz in the 21st Century, by Bill Beuttler
- Vinyl Theory, by Jeffrey R. Di Leo
- Elizabeth Bishop and the Literary Archive, by Bethany Hicok
- Being a Presence for Students: Teaching as a Lived Defense of Liberal Education, by Jeff Frank
- History without Chronology, by Stefan Tanaka
- Extraordinary Partnerships: How the Arts and Humanities Are Transforming America, by Christine Henseler
UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND PRESS
The University of Maryland Press has made several volumes of its journal, Restoration: Studies in English Literary Culture, 1660–1700, available for free on Project MUSE until June 30.
MANCHESTER UNIVERSITY PRESS
Manchester University Press offers open access to nearly two hundred books and three journals. These include the James Baldwin Review, Human Remains and Violence: An Interdisciplinary Journal, and the Journal of Humanitarian Affairs.
Highlights
- Dating Beowulf: Studies in Intimacy, edited by Daniel C. Remein and Erica Weaver
- Change and the Politics of Certainty, by Jenny Edkins
- Governing the Dead: Sovereignty and the Politics of Dead Bodies, edited by Finn Stepputat
MEDIEVAL INSTITUTE PUBLICATIONS
Medieval Institute Publications runs an open-access website publishing works on medieval and early modern studies.
Highlights
- Monsters in Society: Alterity, Transgression, and the Use of the Past in Medieval Iceland, by Rebecca Merkelbach
- The Corporeality of Clothing in Medieval Literature: Cognition, Kinesis, and the Sacred, by Sarah Brazil
- The Third Gender and Ælfric’s Lives of Saints, by Rhonda L. McDaniel
- Darkness, Depression, and Descent in Anglo-Saxon England, by Ruth Wehlau
UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN PRESS
University of Michigan Press has made all of its books (1,153 titles) free-to-read until April 30.
Highlights
- Flourishing Thought: Democracy in an Age of Data Hoards, by Ruth A. Miller
- Rhythms of the Afro-Atlantic World, edited by Mamadou Diouf and Ifeoma Kiddoe Nwankwo
- Rhetorical Code Studies: Discovering Arguments in and around Code, by Kevin Brock
- The Resonance of Unseen Things: Poetics, Power, Captivity, and UFOs in the American Uncanny, by Susan Lepselter
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA PRESS
University of Minnesota Press has made more than 50 books freely available on their open-access site and at Debates in the Digital Humanities. They have also expanded access to their e-books and journals through JSTOR.
Highlights
- Anti-Book: On the Art and Politics of Radical Publishing, by Nicholas Thoburn
- Designs on the Public: The Private Lives of New York’s Public Spaces, by Kristine F. Miller
- Uproarious: How Feminists and Other Subversive Comics Speak Truth, by Cynthia Willett and Julie Willett
UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS
Over three hundred books published by the University of Missouri Press are available for free on Project MUSE through the end of June. Books cover subjects such as American history, literary studies, politics, and biographies.
Highlights
- Protest and Propaganda: W. E. B. Du Bois, the CRISIS, and American History, edited by Amy Helene Kirschke and Phillip Luke Sinitiere
- The Pursuit of Happiness in the Founding Era: An Intellectual History, by Carli N. Conklin
- Reconceiving Nature: Ecofeminism in Late Victorian Women’s Poetry, by Patricia Murphy
MIT PRESS
Over five hundred books and 17 journals by the MIT Press are available for free on Project MUSE through the end of June. Books topics include computer science, economics, environmental studies, neuroscience, and philosophy. The journals include The American Journal of Bioethics, PAJ: A Journal of Performance Art, and The Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics.
Highlights
- New Methuselahs: The Ethics of Life Extension, by John K. Davis
- Waste: A New Media Primer, by Roberto Simanowski, translated by Amanda DeMarco and Susan H. Gillespie
- What Do Science, Technology, and Innovation Mean from Africa?, edited by Clapperton Chakanetsa Mavhunga
MONASH UNIVERSITY PUBLISHING
Monash University Publishing offers over 60 open-access titles. Many of these texts deal with Australia and its history, but many others cover media studies, education, urban planning, queer studies, and other subjects.
Highlights
- Breaking the Silence: Survivors Speak about 1965–66 Violence in Indonesia, edited by Putu Oka Sukanta and translated by Jennifer Lindsay
- The Sexual Abuse of Children: Recognition and Redress, edited by Yorick Smaal, Andy Kaladelfos, and Mark Finnane
- A Pedagogy of Place: Outdoor Education for a Changing World, by Brian Wattchow and Mike Brown
UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS
University of Nebraska Press is offering open access to nearly 1,500 books and journals on Project MUSE until the end of May.
Highlights
- From Chernobyl with Love: Reporting from the Ruins of the Soviet Union, by Katya Cengel
- Empire of Infields: Baseball in Taiwan and Cultural Identity, 1895–1968, by John J. Harney
- Global Jewish Foodways: A History, by Hasia R. Diner
- Invisible Reality: Storytellers, Storytakers, and the Supernatural World of the Blackfeet, by Rosalyn R. LaPier
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
University of North Carolina Press is offering open access to nearly 1,700 books and journals on Project MUSE until the end of May.
Highlights
- Beneath the Backbone of the World: Blackfoot People and the North American Borderlands, 1720–1877, by Ryan Hall
- An Environmental History of the Civil War, by Judkin Browning
- Opening the Gates to Asia: A Transpacific History of How America Repealed Asian Exclusion, by Jane H. Hong
UNIVERSITY OF NORTH TEXAS PRESS
University of North Texas Press offers over 80 open-access texts. The majority concern Texas history and folklore, but available texts also cover a wide range of other subjects.
Highlights
- Between the Cracks of History: Essays on Teaching and Illustrating Folklore, edited by Francis E. Abernethy
- Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African-American Folklore, edited by Francis E. Abernethy, Patrick B. Mullen, and Alan B. Govenar
- The Roots of Latino Urban Agency, by Sharon A. Navarro and Rodolfo Rosales
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY PRESS
This press offers open-access books covering African studies, literary criticism, and philosophy.
Highlights
- Yeats’ Shakespeare, by Rupin Desai
- Southern Nilotic History: Linguistic Approaches to the Study of the Past, by Christopher Ehret
- Dark Conceit: The Making of Allegory, by Edwin Honig
OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The press offers over a hundred open-access texts, primarily covering literary history and criticism.
Highlights
- Toward A Working-Class Canon: Literary Criticism in British Working-Class Periodicals, 1816–1858, by Paul Thomas Murphy
- Art and Anger: Reading Like a Woman, by Jane Marcus
- Virgil and The Tempest: Politics of Imitation, by Donna B. Hamilton
PENN STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Penn State University Press is offering open access to more than four hundred e-books on Project Muse and to more than two hundred e-books on JSTOR through June 30. PSU Press journals hosted on Project Muse are free through the end of May.
Highlights
- The Book of Peace, by Christine de Pizan, edited by Karen Green, Constant J. Mews, and Janice Pinder
- Kimbanguism: An African Understanding of the Bible, by Aurélien Mokoko Gampiot, translated by Cécile Coquet-Mokoko
- Multilingualism and Mother Tongue in Medieval French, Occitan, and Catalan Narratives, by Catherine E. Léglu
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
University of Pennsylvania Press has made all of its digital content free on Project MUSE until the end of June.
Highlights
- Coming Home? Refugees, Migrants, and Those Who Stayed Behind, edited by Lynellyn D. Long and Ellen Oxfeld
- The Pilgrim and the Bee: Reading Rituals and Book Culture in Early New England, by Matthew P. Brown
- Battle for Algeria: Sovereignty, Health Care, and Humanitarianism, by Jennifer Johnson
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Princeton University Press has made nearly six thousand books available for free on Project MUSE through the end of June. The books cover American and world history, politics, film studies, aesthetics, philosophy, literary studies, and more.
Highlights
- Deaths of Despair and the Future of Capitalism, by Anne Case and Angus Deaton
- After Callimachus: Poems, by Stephanie Burt
- Comparing the Literatures: Literary Studies in a Global Age, by David Damrosch
PUNCTUM BOOKS
Punctum Books publishes writing from the humanities, social sciences, and fine-arts/design, with an emphasis on innovative form. Their entire catalog is open-access and available here.
Highlights
- Opioids: Addiction, Narrative, Freedom, by Maia Dolphin-Krute
- How We Read: Tales, Fury, Nothing, Sound, edited by Kaitlin Heller and Suzanne Conklin Akbari
- No Archive Will Restore You, by Julietta Singh
PURDUE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Purdue University Press provides open access to over 50 books in addition to four journals: CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture; First Opinions, Second Reactions; The Journal of Aviation Technology and Engineering; and The Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research.
Highlights
- Voices of Resistance: Communication and Social Change, by Mohan Dutta
- Imagining Afghanistan: Global Fiction and Film of the 9/11 Wars, by Alla Ivanchikova
- Composing the Party Line: Music and Politics in Early Cold War Poland and East Germany, by David G. Tompkins
RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS
Through the end of April, Rutgers University Press is offering four free e-books on disease and epidemiology.
Complete List
- The Burdens of Disease: Epidemics and Human Response in Western History, by J. N. Hays
- The Death of Disease: A History of the Eradication of Poliomyelitis, edited by Bernard Seytre and Mary Shaffer
- Blood on Their Hands: How Greedy Companies, Inept Bureaucracy, and Bad Science Killed Thousands of Hemophiliacs, by Eric Weinberg and Donna Shaw
- Beasts of the Earth: Animals, Humans, and Disease, by E. Fuller Torrey and Robert H. Yolken
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS
University of South Carolina Press is providing open access to over four hundred books on Project MUSE until the end of May.
Highlights
- Solitary Pagans: Contemporary Witches, Wiccans, and Others Who Practice Alone, by Helen A. Berger
- The Interruption That We Are: The Health of the Lived Body, Narrative, and Public Moral Argument, by Michael J. Hyde
- Speaking Qur’an: An American Scripture, by Timur R. Yuskaev
- The Torrid Zone: Caribbean Colonization and Cultural Interaction in the Long Seventeenth Century, by L. H. Roper
TEMPLE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Temple University Press is providing open access to over seven hundred books on Project MUSE until the end of May.
Highlights
- The Asian American Avant-Garde: Universalist Aspirations in Modernist Literature and Art, by Audrey Wu Clark
- Blow Up the Humanities, by Toby Miller
- Ecomusicology: Rock, Folk, and the Environment, by Mark Pedelty
TEXAS TECH UNIVERSITY PRESS
The press has included 59 books and two journals in its collection on Project MUSE. These can be accessed for free until June 30. Its books include novels in addition to works on history, political reform, agriculture, natural history, and other subjects. Its two available journals are Conradiana: Journal of Joseph Conrad Studies and Helios, a journal of classical studies.
Highlights
- Trail Sisters: Freedwomen in Indian Territory, 1850–1890, by Linda Williams Reese
- Unwanted Legacies: Sharing the Burden of Post-Genocide Generations, by Gottfried Wagner and Abraham J. Peck
- Route 66: A Road to America’s Landscape, History, and Culture, by Markku Henriksson
UTAH STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Through June 30, Utah State University Press has made over 300 e-books available for free on Project MUSE. The press publishes works in the fields of composition studies, creative writing, folklore, Native American studies, nature and environment, and more.
Highlights
- Radical Writing Center Praxis, by Laura Greenfield
- How Writing Faculty Write: Strategies for Process, Product, and Productivity, by Christine E. Tulley
- Generation Vet: Composition, Student Veterans, and the Post-9/11 University, edited by Sue Doe and Lisa Langstraat
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY PRESS
Vanderbilt University Press has made over 250 books available for free on Project MUSE through the end of May. The press publishes works on the humanities, social sciences, healthcare, education, and regional studies.
Highlights
- Sex, Skulls, and Citizens: Gender and Racial Science in Argentina (1860–1910), by Ashley Elizabeth Kerr
- Conflicted Health Care: Professionalism and Caring in an Urban Hospital, by Ester Carolina Apesoa-Varano and Charles S. Varano
- Writing Revolution in Latin America: From Martí to García Márquez to Bolaño, by Juan E. De Castro
ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS VIENNA
The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna offers 13 open-access books, mainly on art and culture.
Highlights
- Fashion and Postcolonial Critique, edited by Elke Gaugele and Monica Titton
- On Productive Shame, Reconciliation, and Agency, edited by Suzana Milevska
- Not Now! Now! Chronopolitics, Art, and Research, edited by Renate Lorenz
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA PRESS
University of Virginia press has made over 450 e-books available for free on Project MUSE through June 30. The press covers subjects such as social sciences, American history, African American studies, political science, literary and cultural studies, religious studies, architecture, and environmental studies.
Highlights
- Indoor America: The Interior Landscape of Postwar Suburbia, by Andrea Vesentini
- Reading Contagion: The Hazards of Reading in the Age of Print, by Annika Mann
- Water Graves: The Art of the Unritual in the Greater Caribbean, by Valérie Loichot
WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
The press has made nine journals and over five hundred books available for free on Project MUSE through May 31. Its books cover a wide range of topics, including African American studies, anthropology, art history, cultural studies, disability studies, environmental studies, film history, media studies, philosophy, theater, and urban studies. Its journals include Criticism: A Quarterly for Literature and the Arts, Human Biology, and Jewish Film and New Media: An International Journal.
Highlights
- 1968 and Global Cinema edited by Christina Gerhardt and Sara Saljoughi
- A People’s Atlas of Detroit edited by Linda Campbell, Andrew Newman, Sara Safransky, and Tim Stallmann
- Kugel and Frijoles: Latino Jews in the United States by Laura Limonic
UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST INDIES PRESS
Several issues of the Journal of Caribbean History are available for free through Project MUSE until the end of June.
Updated April 16, 2020
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