Textbooks, eTextbooks & Course Reserves

We can put an extra copy of the textbook that you have, or pull an existing library copy, on Course Reserves. Fill out the form and choose how long you want it to be checked out by the student, from 1 hour Library Use Only up to 1 week. See Course Reserves for more information.

If you want the library to purchase a print copy, talk to your liaison librarian.

Interested in the library having your adopted textbook as an ebook?

We May Already Have It

EWU Libraries may already have a copy of the textbook. The Orbis Cascade Alliance, the consortium that runs Summit, has purchased large collections of ebooks for all the Summit libraries. And since Winter 2022, we have been purchasing some etextbooks, when we can get an unlimited use version that isn't absurdly expensive compared to the amount students can collectively save.

Talk to Your Liaison Librarian to See If the Textbook Can Be Purchased

Some academic publishers and university presses want libraries to purchase multi-user licenses of ebooks. If your textbook is published by Wiley, Sage, Taylor & Francis, or any university press, it's worth exploring. Talk to your liaison librarian.

Titles from major textbook publishers such as Cengage, McGraw Hill, Norton, Pearson, and Wadsworth are not going to be available for libraries to purchase.

Titles from Hachette, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Penguin/Random House, and Simon & Schuster aren't going to be available for libraries to purchase an unlimited use license. (They are aimed at individual ebook purchasers.) We may be able to buy a 1 or 3 user license. We'd have to balance the cost of the license vs the student cost. Again talk to your liaison librarian.

Open to Adopting a Different Book?

You can search the Catalog by subject/keyword, and limit to eBooks, to see all the titles available. You'll want to exclude the government documents.

If you'd prefer to browse, or you'd like to do a detailed keyword search, go directly to:

Or talk with your liaison librarian. We can search our academic publisher vendor by subject and see what titles are available to purchase as ebooks.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are any type of educational materials that are in public domain or with an open license that permits others to reuse, revise, remix, retain, and redistribute materials. You can download the material, tailor it to your course, save a copy locally, and share it back out with attribution. Students can access the material for free online or in print at low cost. 

• OERs include open textbooks as well as supplemental instructional materials.
• OERs have been expanding rapidly in the 21st century via a wide variety of initiatives. Some states and large university systems have been heavily promoting the creation and adoption of OERs.

For more information, see Open Educational Resources (OER).

Search for OER

Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS) searches open content from over 100 different sources and includes textbooks, courses, audiobooks, videos, books, and more. Developed by SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library.

Get Help with Locating OER

Social Sciences Librarian Liya Deng or Humanities Librarian Ielleen Miller are happy to work with you in locating relevant OER for your classes.