Empower Your Academic Journey

What is Open Access?

Open Access refers to research articles, academic papers, datasets, and books published online with free, immediate, and unrestricted access for anyone with an internet connection.

Unlike traditional academic journals that require expensive subscriptions or paywalls, Open Access allows students, researchers, faculty, and the public to read, download, copy, distribute, and print scholarly work at no extra cost.

Why Open Access Matters

  • Removes Financial Barriers-

    Giving students and independent scholars full access to vital research regardless of institutional funding or library budgets.

  • Accelerates Innovation-

    Thus allowing researchers worldwide to build upon existing scientific and social discoveries faster without waiting for publisher approvals.

  • Increases Visibility & Impact

    Hence, works published under open access receive higher visibility, leading to more citations and broader recognition globally.

  • Promotes Equity in Knowledge-

    Therefore ensuring equal opportunities for researchers in developing regions to engage with and contribute to global academic discourse.

Open Access Resources

Discover unrestricted academic databases, open dissertations, and data sets curated by the WUA Library to advance your study, scholarship, and community impact.

ChildInfor

Provides statistics and data on the situation of children and women throughout the world

 https://data.unicef.or

New Jersey Open Data Center

Established to avail US state data and allows sophisticated filtering, sorting and charting

https://data.nj.gov

NYC Open Data

Powerful tool that ensures transparency and fosters civic innovation to help improve the quality of life for all New Yorkers

https://opendata.cityofnewyork.us

U.S. Census Bureau

Official site for data published by the US Census Bureau. Contains content previously available from American FactFinder including population, economic, housing, and geographic information and data about the United States, Puerto Rico, and the Island areas. Data Gems is a series of short videos available for data users who are looking for an easy and quick way to enhance their knowledge of Census data and concepts

https://data.census.gov

 

AidData

Comprehensive database on international development finance and foreign aid, accompanied by a variety of innovative web-based applications for data analysis

https://www.aiddata.org

ARTstor Public Collections

Approximately 2 million freely accessible images, videos, documents and audio files from library special collections, faculty research, and institutional history materials, as well as hundreds of thousands of open access images from partner museums and institutions such as Cornell University, Colby College, RISD, and MIT

https://www.jstor.org/site/collection-list/

ArXiv Archive

A full-text, open archive and distribution server for theoretical and applied scientific research papers hosted by Cornell University

https://arxiv.org/search

Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA)

Provides open access to the Bibliography of the History of Art (BHA) and to the Répertoire International de la Littérature de l'Art (RILA). These citation databases cover European and American visual arts material published between 1975 and 2007

https://primo.getty.edu/primo-explore/search?vid=GRI&lang=en_US&fromRedirectFilter=true

Biodiversity Heritage Library

Digitised books, journals, images and collections from a consortium of natural history and botanical libraries creating a global “biodiversity commons” of significant biodiversity materials. Includes the foundational literature component of the Encyclopedia of Life

https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org

bioRxiv

Free online archive and distribution service for unpublished preprints in the life sciences

https://www.biorxiv.org/about-biorxiv

Black Freedom Struggle in the United States: Challenges and Triumphs in the Pursuit of Equality

Select primary source documents related to critical people and events in African American history and supports a wide range of students and researchers exploring the ongoing racial injustice in the U.S. and movements such as Black Lives Matter

https://blackfreedom.proquest.com

Center on Media and Child Health

Database of emerging research from academic journals in a variety of disciplines, including medicine, education, sociology, psychology, gender studies, communication, and more that reveals the evidence behind the ways media, youth, and health intersect.

https://digitalwellnesslab.org/research/

ChemRxiv

Free submission, distribution and archive service for unpublished preprints in chemistry and related areas.

https://chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxiv/public-dashboard

Chem Spider

A free chemical structure database providing fast access to over 25 million structures, properties and associated information enabling researchers to discover the most comprehensive view of freely available chemical data from a single online search

https://www.chemspider.com

Encyclopedia of Life

Descriptions of every species known to science with a list of references to books and articles

https://eol.org

FAO                                     

Brings together multidisciplinary knowledge in statistical yearbooks and analyses, global assessments, reviews and outlooks, guidelines, manuals and specialised studies

https://www.fao.org/home/en

Feminae: Medieval women and gender index

Covers journal articles, book reviews and essays in books about women, sexuality and gender during the Middle Ages

https://inpress.lib.uiowa.edu/feminae/Default.aspx

Find Law

Access to New York consolidated and unconsolidated laws, court acts and rules

https://codes.findlaw.com/ny/

Google Scholar

Indexes full metadata of scholarly literature from an array of multi-disciplinary disciplines and formats

https://scholar.google.com

ILOSTAT - International Labour Organisation

Data for over 100 indicators and 165 economies linking to annual data prior to 2008

https://ilostat.ilo.org

IMF eLibrary                       

Online archive of IMF publications, dating back to 1946 and the content includes books and analytical papers, notes and manuals, official reports, documents, and periodicals

https://www.elibrary.imf.org

IMF International Financial Statistics

Economic statistics for all countries compiled by the IMF and includes international financial statistics, balance of payments, direction of trade, government finance statistics and more

https://data.imf.org/?sk=388dfa60-1d26-4ade-b505-a05a558d9a42

Internet Archive

Non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and more

https://archive.org

JSTOR Open Access Content

Open Access content in a variety of formats like e-books, e-journals, images and special collections

https://about.jstor.org/oa-and-free/

medRxiv

Free online archive and distribution server for complete but unpublished manuscripts (preprints) in the medical, clinical, and related health sciences

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/about-medrxiv

Moving Image (Internet) Archive

A rich core collection of archival movies which range from classic full-length films, to daily alternative news broadcasts, to cartoons and concerts. Many of these videos are available for free download

https://archive.org/details/movies

New York Public Library Digital Gallery

Provides open access to over 800,000 images digitised from the New York Public Library's vast collections, including illuminated manuscripts, historical maps, vintage posters, rare prints, photographs.

https://digitalcollections.nypl.org

Open Library of the Humanities

International library consortium with the sole mission of advancing open access to research in academic journals across the humanities disciplines

https://www.openlibhums.org

PEN America's Digital Archive

Online archive of public and private programming featuring the world’s foremost writers, intellectuals, and artists in candid and often heated discourse about the most relevant cultural and political issues of our times

https://archive.pen.org

Perseus Digital Library

Designed to aid in the study and analysis of Greek and Roman literature, it includes full texts (in English and original language), a word study tool, links from text to maps, footnotes and definitions and is hosted by Tufts University

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/

Population Reference Bureau

Provides access reports from all over the world on population trends, health, and the environment.

https://www.prb.org

Project MUSE - Open Access

Provides access to open access books and journals on the Project Muse platform and applies non-standard use of Boolean operators.

https://about.muse.jhu.edu/muse/open-access-overview/

Public Library of Science (PLOS)

Provides access to a suite of influential open access journals across all areas of science and medicine and includes submission of papers that have been shared as preprints

https://plos.org

socArXiv

Open archive of the social sciences, providing a free, non-profit, open access platform for social scientists to upload working papers, preprints, and published papers, with the option to link data and code

https://socopen.org

Springer Nature Link

Provide access to the depth and breadth of online journals, e-books, reference works and protocols across a vast range of disciplines

https://link.springer.com/search?search-within=Journal&facet-journal-id=42214&package=openaccessarticles

UNESCO

The UNESCO Digital Library provides access to publications, documents and other materials either produced by UNESCO or pertaining to UNESCO’s fields of competence

https://unesdoc.unesco.org

World Bank e- Library

This is The World Bank’s official open access repository for its research outputs and knowledge products.

https://www.worldbank.org/ext/en/home

World Bank Open Knowledge Repository

Books, journals and other intellectual output of the World Bank.

https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/home

Bookboon

Provides access to helpful and practical personal development content on an easy to use platform making it easy for everyone to develop themselves through high-quality learning content

https://bookboon.com

Brill Open e-books online

Hundreds of open access books covering a wide range of subjects

https://brill.com/display/serial/BOEB

Digital Public Library of America

An open network of online resources that draws on America’s living heritage from libraries, universities, archives, and museums

https://dp.la/

Directory of Open Access books

Academic, peer-reviewed books from hundreds of publishers though some books may have partial content only

https://www.doabooks.org/

EBSCO eBook Open Access Collection

Provides access to over 2,500 open access electronic book titles

https://www.ebsco.com/resources/ebsco-ebooks-open-access-collection

Eighteenth Century Collections Online - Text Creation Partnership

Electronic text editions of eighteenth century collections online

https://quod.lib.imich.edu/e/ecco/

Elgar Open Access e-books 

E-books covering many aspects on law plus subjects in social policy, education and business and the titles have yellow dots

https://www.elgaronline.com/browse?access=open&level=parent&pageSize=10&sort=datedescending

Firenze University Press: Open Access e-books

Over 1,000 open access electronic books covering a wide range of subjects

https://books.fupress.com/open-access-book-list

Google Books

Free books made available to read through careful consideration of and respect for copyright law globally and are public-domain works, made free on request of the copyright owner, or copyright-free

https://books.google.co.zw/?hl=en

Humanities Open Book Collection

Open access collection of outstanding out-of-print books in the humanities available as free e-books

https://digitalpublishing.library.northeastern.edu/nupress/humanities-open-book/

JSTOR Open Access e-books

Monographs across the Humanities and Social Sciences fields and the publishers include Fordham University Press, NYU Press, Cornell University Press, University of California Press, Princeton University Press, and Yale University Press

https://about.jstor.org/oa-and-free/

OAPEN - Open Access Publishing in European Networks

A quality controlled collection of books, mainly in the area of humanities and social sciences

https://www.oapen.org

Online Books

This is a website that facilitates access to books that are freely readable over the Internet with an aim to encourage the development of such online books, for the benefit and edification of all

https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu

Open Books Publishers

Is changing the nature of the traditional academic book with books published in hardback, paperback and e-book editions, and also publishes free online editions of every title in PDF, HTML and XML formats that can be read via their website, downloaded, reused or embedded anywhere

https://www.openbookpublishers.com

PDFDrive                             

This is a search engine for PDF files with over 80 million electronic books that one can download for free

www.pdfdrive.com

Project Gutenberg                

Offers thousands of free high quality electronic books

https://www.gutenberg.org

Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies

Archive of rare books, manuscripts, and images from the 9th-20th centuries available at PENN Library collections

https://sdbm.library.upenn.edu

Springer Open Books

Offers a wide range of books in the areas of science, technology and medicine (STM)

https://link.springer.com/search?package=openaccess&facet-content-type=%22Book”

Textbook Revolution

A student-run site dedicated to increasing the use of free educational materials by teachers and professors and some of the books are PDF files while  others are viewable online as e-books, or some simply web sites containing course or multimedia content.

https://www.ipl.org/textbook-revolution/

TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem)

An initiative to increase access to humanities and social sciences scholarship formed by the Association of American Universities, Association of Research Libraries, and Association of University Presses including Fordham University Press.

https://books.openmonographs.org

University of Michigan Press (On Fulcrum Platform)

Hundreds of Open Access Books and hosted by UMP's Fulcrum platform and non-profit infrastructure built by, and for, the academy and includes Michigan Asian Studies Open Access Books Collection.

https://www.fulcrum.org/michigan?locale=en&user_access=oa

University of California Press - Open Access Monographs

This is University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program for peer reviewed research and scholarly works.

https://luminosoa.org

 

EBSCO Open Dissertations

Includes the content from American Doctoral Dissertations, a free database with records for more than 1.4 million electronic theses and dissertations from more than 320 universities around the world.

https://www.ebsco.com/products/research-databases/ebsco-open-dissertations

Open Access Theses and dissertations

Provides access to over 6 million graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata of these comes from over 1,100 colleges, universities and research institutions.

https://oatd.org/

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Open Access

It provides researchers with quality and equitable search results across all institutions, as well as rich citation data that delivers insights into the connections building around the world

https://about.proquest.com/en/dissertations/

Women’s University in Africa Institutional Repository (WUAIR)

The WUA Institutional Repository (WUAIR) is a digital platform that collects, preserves, and distributes scholarly content produced by the Women’s University in Africa community. It contains postgraduate theses / dissertations, journal articles, book chapters, conference papers, pre-prints, working papers, technical reports, progress reports, project reports, among others

http://ir.wua.ac.zw/

 

Dictionary of Slang

Definitions and links to information about the slang of various locations and groups in the United Kingdom

http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/

Encyclopedia of Earth

Open access resource issued by the National Council for Science and the Environment

https://editors.eol.org/eoearth/wiki/The_Encyclopedia_of_Earth

Jesuit Historiography Online

Over seventy summaries of key texts from the earlier literature, painstaking surveys of more recent work, and digests of archival and online resources. Global scope covering both Anglophone and non-Anglophone sources and scholarship from Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Americas

https://referenceworks.brill.com/display/db/jho

Jesuit Online Bibliography

Searchable database of bibliographic records for scholarship in Jesuit Studies produced in the 21st century. Editorial oversight from the Archivum Romanum Societatis Iesu, the Jesuitica Project at KU Leuven, and the Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies at Boston College

https://jesuitonlinebibliography.bc.ed

Jesuit Relations

A 73-volume set, in the original Italian, Latin and French with commentary and translation into English.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44669/44669-h/44669-h.htm

Jesuit Studies Portal by Boston College

The Portal grants online access to a curated and searchable collection of primary sources and secondary scholarship related to the history, spirituality, educational heritage, and pedagogy approach of the Society of Jesus.

https://jesuitportal.bc.edu/about/portal/

Luna Commons

A wide variety of high quality open-access image collections of cultural heritage material from museums, archives, universities and other repositories

https://www.lunacommons.org/luna/servlet/allCollection

Merck Manual

Provides information on the treatments for thousands of diseases and conditions and contains photographs, audio and video material

https://www.merckmanuals.com/home

Online Courses.com

Over 500 free university and college level classes from the world's leading universities

https://www.onlinecourses.com

Polling Report.com

Free, independent resource on trends in American public opinion

https://www.pollingreport.co

The Street.com

Provides minute news and analysis of the U.S. Stock Markets

https://www.thestreet.com

SuperPages       

Free business and personal directories

https://www.superpages.com

Vatican Library

Free access to the Vatican Library’s digitised collections in the form of manuscripts, incunabula, archival materials and inventories as well as graphic materials, coins and medals, printed materials (special projects)

https://www.vaticanlibrary.v

World Digital Library

Makes available on the internet, free of charge and in multilingual format, significant primary materials from countries around the world

https://www.loc.gov/collections/world-digital-library/about-this-collection

Your Dictionary

A comprehensive reference site featuring original definitions with examples of use cases, definitions from Webster and English Language dictionaries, thesauri entries from Roget’s, specialty definitions, encyclopedic information, related articles, audio pronunciations, etymology and word games

https://www.yourdictionary.co

ATLA Digital Library

Open access digitised collections from libraries, religious institutions, and other organisations worldwide who collect and preserve texts, records, maps, photographs and recordings

https://dl.atla.com

Collection of Computer Science Bibliographies

Collection of bibliographies covering most aspects of computer science literature from various sources

https://www.ipl.org/the-collection-of-computer-science-bibliographies/

Educational Testing Service

Information about educational tests and research by Educational Testing Service (ETS)

https://secure.historians.org/members/services/cgi-bin/memberdll.dll/info?wrp=dissertations.htm

Federal Reserve Archival System for Economic Research (FRASER)

Digital library of U.S. economic, financial, and banking history—particularly the history of the Federal Reserve System

https://fraser.stlouisfed.org

African Theology Internet Portal

Collection of thematic bibliographies covering a growing range of central themes and topics meant to develop into a comprehensive resource for the study of African Christianity and African theology

https://african.theologyworldwide.com/internet-portal

Inter-American Development Bank Repository

Gateway for a broad range of resources and information for all sectors and countries of Latin America and the Caribbean. Includes policy briefs, working papers, annual reports, monographs, statistics, economic indicators, data visualisations for various socio-economic variables and more

https://publications.iadb.org/en

IQS Directory for Manufacturing, Business and Engineering

Provides multi-faceted information for research and industry analysis in the manufacturing, business and engineering disciplines

https://www.iqsdirectory.com

Open Access Digital Theological Library

Access to high-quality religious studies content and is composed primarily of fully open access books and articles. The collections are ecumenical, global, and interreligious and include materials in all languages

https://libguides.thedtl.org/oadt

WHED Portal - World Higher Education

International Association of Universities' Worldwide Database of Higher Education Institutions, Systems and Credentials

https://www.whed.net/home.php

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