Catalog & Databases
What Is Open Access?
"Open Access to information – the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need – has the power to transform the way research and scientific inquiry are conducted. It has direct and widespread implications for academia, medicine, science, industry, and for society as a whole." --Open Access Week
Open Access (OA) does not mean free access. Some journals may charge nominal fees or impose an embargo period. Many publishers use a color system to distinguish between these different levels.
The OA movement is related to the open source movement (for software and coding) and Creative Commons. All of them help creators define how and when their content can be used and re-used.
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"A Very Brief Introduction to Open Access" by Peter SuberFirst published in 2004
Suber expanded on that article (plus other writings) into a textbook on open access:
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Open Access
by
Call Number: E-BookISBN: 9780262301732Publication Date: 2012Published by The MIT Press. In this concise introduction, Peter Suber tells us what open access is and isn't, how it benefits authors and readers of research, how we pay for it, how it avoids copyright problems, how it has moved from the periphery to the mainstream, and what its future may hold.
Find Open Access Content
Start Here
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Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
Search 44,000+ e-books, mostly from academic and scholarly presses across all disciplines. -
Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
Covers 16,000+ free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. Aims to cover all subjects and languages.
Additional Sites
Many of the items listed in the sites below are also indexed in the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) and the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
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Digital Public Library of America This link opens in a new window
The Digital Public Library of America brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, and museums, and makes them freely available to the world. Many books and images available. -
Independent Voices This link opens in a new window
Hosted on JSTOR. Open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century. -
Open Access Digital Theological Library (OADTL) This link opens in a new window
Curated collection of high-quality content in religious studies and related disciplines from publisher websites, institutional repositories, scholarly societies, archives, and stable public domain collections. Over 198,000 ebooks and 6,200 journals. -
Open Library This link opens in a new window
Short-term access to over 1 million books. Must create an Internet Archive account to borrow ebooks. -
Project MUSE This link opens in a new window
Project MUSE offers open access (OA) books and journals from several distinguished university presses and scholarly societies (We also license a small number of titles from them as well.) Covers literature and criticism, history, the visual and performing arts, cultural studies, education, political science, gender studies, etc. -
Public Library of Science This link opens in a new window
Scholarly biomedical journals online. PLOS is a nonprofit, Open Access publisher empowering researchers to accelerate progress in science and medicine by leading a transformation in research communication.
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Taylor & Francis Open Access Books and Chapters
Full or partial access to 1,200+ e-books across all disciplines. Includes frontlist and backlist books, including items from the Routledge Gender Studies and the Routledge African Studies Collections
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World Bank Open Data This link opens in a new window
Provides free and open access to a comprehensive set of data about development in countries around the globe.
Open Access Content in Our Subscription Databases
These databases host some open access content and include them in their search results.
Most of this content is listed in the Directory of Open Access Books and the Directory of Open Access Journals.
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JSTOR This link opens in a new window
7,000+ Open Access ebooks from 90 publishers, including Brill, Cornell University Press, De Gruyter, and University of California Press. -
ProQuest Research Library This link opens in a new window
Includes open access content in its search results.
Stock Photography and Royalty-Free Images
Otis students, faculty and staff have access to Adobe Stock images via the Creative Cloud subscription. Some restrictions apply. Only includes Photos, Illustrations, Vectors, Free, and 3D categories. If you do not see it listed on your account, please contact the IT Helpdesk.
Look for resources created under either a completely unrestricted use license, or a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license, meaning that you can download, use, manipulate, share, distribute, or otherwise use them for whatever purpose you'd like without permission. It is strongly recommended that you credit the creator(s) of the image, but it is not necessary.
Here are some of our favorite free sources:
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UnsplashBeautiful, free photos. Gifted by the world’s most generous community of photographers. Can be used for commercial or noncommercial purposes.
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FotosearchStock photography and footage. Images may be licensed for certain uses. READ the terms of use.
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Getty Images: Stock Images Free for Educational UseGetty Images offers over 100,000 stock images and videos that are free for educational use.
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MorguefileFree high resolution digital stock photography for either corporate or public use
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nappyBeautiful, high-resolution photographs of black and brown people, available under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.
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The Noun ProjectOver 1 million royalty-free icons
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Open Clip ArtClip art images available for downloading and remixing; all images are in the public domain
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Open PhotoModerated photo community with the goal of uniting image consumers and producers through friendly Creative Commons licensing. (Royalty-free images, many of which are free.)
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PexelsFree stock photography. Images can be downloaded at custom sizes. Also has videos.
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PixabayOver 1.2 million images and videos, available for completely free use under Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license.
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Smithsonian Open AccessExplore and reuse millions of digital assets—2D and 3D images and data—from the Smithsonian's collections and released into the public domain under a Creative Commons Zero (CC0) license
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