Open Bookshelf – DPLA Ebooks

Open Bookshelf

As part of our core mission of maximizing access to our shared culture, DPLA aggregates openly licensed ebooks and makes them available to libraries and the public. Our Open Bookshelf is a digital library collection of more than 10,000 popular ebooks free to download, formatted for modern devices, and handpicked by our Curation Corps of librarians from across the United States.

The public is welcome to browse the Open Bookshelf and download ebooks for free. No log-in, password, or registration required.

You can find our collection development policy here.

What's in the Open Bookshelf?

Open Bookshelf includes widely read and widely held titles from genres and sources such as:

Public Domain Classics

Textbooks

Academic Library and Press Publications

Creative-Commons licensed fiction and nonfiction

Non-English Language Books

Children’s Books

Libraries who purchase content from Palace Marketplace, formerly DPLA Exchnage, will fnd Open Bookshelf titles alongside licensed content.

Users can download ebooks for free, no log-in, registration, or password required at freebooks.dp.la.

Beginning in fall 2021, this free collection will be available to libraries and their patrons via the Palace app. Click here to find out more about The Palace Project and the Palace app.

DPLA’s ebook work is supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.