History

Open educational resources (OER) have "open licenses" that allow you to reuse and often to adapt materials. Review an item's license for information about how to credit the source and whether it can be adapted. This page includes links to history- and humanities-focused OER, as well as to general OER.

Many thanks to the conveners of the History Librarians Interest Group (of the Association of College & Research Libraries) for compiling and sharing this list of open education textbooks and resources in November 2023.

• Open Textbook Library: History
• MERLOT: Browse humanities materials, or search by keyword, material type, or audience.
• BC Campus Textbooks: History
• The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook
• Open Stax: Humanities
• Cornell Open Press: History
• History in the Making: A History of the People of the United States to 1877
• World History: Cultures, States, and Societies to 1500
• Our Story: An Ancillary to US History (Book description: "examines some traditional some non-traditional aspects of American social, cultural, gender, racial, political, and military history. Most chapters include content provided by community college students.")
• Western Civilization: A Concise History 
• Libretexts: History
• OER Commons: History - books, lesson plans, activities, ancillary materials, etc.
• A Guide to Conducting Institutional Oral History Projects in Classrooms

 OER Commons: Extensive collection of OERs from of faculty and instructional designers.

Creative Commons (CC)-licensed resources can be reused. Use the Commons to find CC-licensed images, or to get a CC license for your own materials.  

JStor has partnered with leading academic publishers to provide open access ebooks, journals, and ebooks and media.