Freely Available and Library Resources During COVID-19

Textbooks and Course Materials

• RedShelf

  • Thanks to CSUSM's Bookstore and RedShelf, students have free access to eBooks from a variety of publishers for no additional cost (this covers about 80% of CSUSM's assigned textbook titles). Titles normally accessed through reserve that we believe to be available through RedShelf are on this list; Details regarding how to access are at https://studentresponse.redshelf.com/. 
• VitalSource
  • VitalSource is an online textbook provider that offers many assigned CSUSM textbooks not available through RedShelf. All CSUSM students and faculty can borrow up to 7 VitalSource title for free through May 24, 2020. To get started, visit bookshelf.vitalsource.com. Before you begin searching for and reading course materials, you will need to log in to an existing Bookshelf account with your institution-provided email address or create a new account. For the access to the free ebooks, you must use your CSUSM-provided email address. Once signed in to the Bookshelf, click Explore to lookup titles. More instructions available at VitalSource Helps.
• Cengage Unlimited
  • Cengage Unlimited is offering all students free access to any Cengage Unlimited textbook through the end of Spring Semester. Details about this are at https://www.cengage.com/covid-19-support/. Faculty can contact either kelly.reaber@cengage.com (Humanities and Social Sciences) or  amanda.barbee@cengage.com (STEM and Health Sciences) to set up free access for their students through Cengage Unlimited.
• National Emergency Library
  • The Internet Archive has announced the National Emergency Library, a collection of books that supports emergency remote teaching, research activities, independent scholarship, and intellectual stimulation while universities, schools, training centers, and libraries are closed. Learn more.
• Public Books Database
  • A directory of free or open access ebooks that have been made available as a result of the COVID-19 situation. Most of these ebooks are available through Project Muse.
• Elsevier
  • Elsevier has made all 256 of their textbooks and all of their All Access ebooks freely available to the CSU. Access Elsevier content through the Library's ScienceDirect database.
• Library Reserves
  • The Library is scanning and providing access to Reserves materials digitally as quickly as possible. Check to see if your course materials are available at https://biblio.csusm.edu/course-reserves. We are constantly updating this list but if you don't see your materials available, contact reserve@csusm.edu. 
• Streaming Video
  • While the Library building is closed and our physical media collection is unavailable, use the Library's streaming media platforms to find films and documentaries you can watch from anywhere. Details are at https://biblio.csusm.edu/research_portal/databases/guides/video-and-streaming-media. Don't see the film you need? Contact media@csusm.edu.
• Perusall
  • Perusall is a text reader and annotation platform that is providing free access to textbooks from several publishers, including textbooks from McGraw-Hill, Broadview Press, Sage, Taylor & Francis, and more. Instructors need to contact support@perusall.com and let us know what book(s) you are using in your course and how many students you have. If permitted to by the publisher, we’ll provide you with an access code your students can use to bypass the paywall for your book(s) until at least May 25. 

Library Resources

• Library Ebooks 

  • The Library provides over 500,000 ebooks that are freely available to all CSUSM faculty, students, and staff. Learn more and search for ebooks through the Library's Ebooks Guide.
• Library Databases
  • The Library's subscription databases provide access to journals, newspapers, magazines, ebooks, streaming video, and much more. Find all of the Library's databases through Databases A-Z.
  • Free Access: All CSUSM databases that have been made available due to COVID-19 are available on the Databases A-Z Trials page.
  • Sage Knowledge contains thousands of ebooks, articles, and streaming video published by the scholarly publisher Sage. CSUSM students, faculty and staff have complete free access through May 18.
  • JoVE Education contains curriculum-focused videos for the Sciences and Psychology and is freely available to CSUSM users through June 15th, 2020.
  • EBSCO has made several additional databases available for free through May 2020:
    • All EBSCO Ebook Collections
    • Academic Search Ultimate
    • Business Source Ultimate
  • Gale Archival Collections
    • Archives of Sexuality and Gender: Sex and Sexuality, Sixteenth to Twentieth Century and LGBTQ History and Culture Parts I and II
    • American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) Papers 1912-1990
    • Political Extremism and Radicalism: Far-Right and Left Political Groups in the 20th Century
  • ProQuest has released a Coronavirus Research Database designed to aggregate research published on the COVID-19 virus as well as scholarly content on the SARS and MERS outbreaks.
  • ProQuest has also made a trial available for its historical newspaper content, which includes historical newspaper content from around the world.
  • The Alexander Street Press Academic Video Online database contains thousands of streaming films and is the most comprehensive video subscription available to libraries. It delivers more than 66,000 titles spanning the widest range of subject areas including anthropology, business, counseling, film, health, history, music, and more.

Library Digital On Demand 

• Use OneSearch to search for materials. If we don't already have what you need full-text, use the InterLibrary Loan request link. We will borrow it from another Library digitally, or if that isn't possible, we'll see if we can purchase or otherwise get you digital access as soon as possible. There may be a delay of up to 7-12 days for ILL/digital on demand requests. Search for resources with OneSearch and Ask Us for help.