Open access (OA) and open educational resources (OER) put the literature of library and information science (LIS) within reach of every African librarian, archivist and student — no subscriptions, no paywalls. This guide curates the best free, stable resources across librarianship, information science, archives and scholarly communication.
Subdisciplines — jump in
- Librarianship — search FRELIP & see OER course 28
- Information Science — search FRELIP & see OER course 28
- Archives & Records Management — search FRELIP & see OER course 28
- Scholarly Communication & OA — search FRELIP & see OER course 28
New here? start with these courses
- FRELIP LIS OER Course (28) (this subject's open course)
- Navigating Research Guides (15)
- Accessing Open Access Journals (16)
- Using VuFind Discovery Search (14)
Search everything
One box across all FRELIP collections: search.frelip.org.
Start here for definitions, terminology and authoritative overviews across LIS.
General LIS
- Wikipedia: Library and Information Science (broad overview with references)
- IFLA Resources & Standards (international LIS guidelines, glossaries, manifestos)
Librarianship
- Library of Congress Cataloging Resources (cataloguing rules, authority files)
- IFLA Standards (FRBR, ISBD, LRM) (bibliographic conceptual models)
Information Science
- ISKO Encyclopedia of Knowledge Organization (peer-reviewed entries on KO concepts)
- ARIST (Annual Review of Information Science & Technology) (review articles surveying the field)
Archives & Records Management
- SAA Dictionary of Archives Terminology (the standard archives glossary)
- ICA Multilingual Archival Terminology (terms across many languages)
Scholarly Communication & OA
- Wikipedia: Open Access (concepts, history, models)
- SPARC Open Glossary & Resources (definitions of OA, OER, open data terms)
Free, full-text books and open textbooks you can read, download and reuse.
OA book platforms (browse the LIS subject)
- DOAB — Directory of Open Access Books (peer-reviewed OA scholarly books)
- OAPEN Library (OA monographs in the humanities & social sciences)
- Open Textbook Library (peer-reviewed open textbooks)
- OER Commons (open educational resources for LIS)
- Internet Archive — Texts (digitised LIS books)
- Project Gutenberg (public-domain works on libraries)
Open textbooks & LibreTexts
- LibreTexts — Social Sciences Bookshelf (open texts incl. information literacy)
- LibreTexts — Humanities Bookshelf (research & writing texts)
Librarianship & Information Literacy
- OCLC Research Publications (free reports on library practice)
Scholarly Communication & OA
- Suber, "Open Access" (MIT Press, free OA edition) (the foundational primer)
Peer-reviewed open access journals and preprint repositories for LIS research.
Find OA journals & articles
- DOAJ — LIS journals (vetted, fully OA journals)
- CORE (aggregated OA articles)
Librarianship
- IFLA Journal (international library research, OA)
- In the Library with the Lead Pipe (open peer-reviewed librarianship journal)
- College & Research Libraries (C&RL) (OA ACRL journal)
Information Science
- Information Research (IR) (long-running OA information-science journal)
Archives & Records Management
- The American Archivist (SAA journal; many OA issues)
- Archive Journal (open scholarship on archives)
Scholarly Communication, OA & Africa
- African Journals Online (AJOL) (African LIS journals; many OA)
- SciELO & Sabinet African Journals (search for African LIS titles)
Open scholarly search engines, bibliographic indexes and citation tools.
Discovery & aggregators
- BASE — Bielefeld Academic Search Engine (200M+ OA documents)
- OpenAlex (open index of works, authors, venues)
- OpenAIRE Explore (EU OA research graph)
- Semantic Scholar (AI-powered literature search)
- The Lens (scholarly & patent search)
- CORE (world's largest OA full-text aggregator)
Citation indexes & bibliometrics
- OpenCitations (open citation data)
- Dimensions (free version) (publications, citations, grants)
- Course 34: Citation Databases & Bibliometric Tools (learn to use these)
Subject databases
- ERIC (education & information literacy literature, free)
- LISWiki (community LIS knowledge base)
- FRELIP Discovery (search LIS across FRELIP)
Open data repositories and primary sources for LIS research and practice.
General data repositories
- Zenodo (CERN-backed open repository for data & software)
- OSF — Open Science Framework (projects, data, preprints)
- Figshare (datasets, figures, supplementary files)
- Dryad (curated research data)
- re3data (registry of research data repositories)
LIS & library data
- OCLC Data & WorldCat (library holdings & bibliographic data)
- IFLA Library Map of the World (global library statistics, incl. Africa)
- LC Linked Data Service (open authorities & vocabularies)
Primary sources & digital archives
- Aluka / JSTOR Africa (African heritage digital collections)
- FRELIP Search (datasets & documents across FRELIP)
Open images, lectures and courseware to learn and teach LIS topics.
Images & media
- Wikimedia Commons — Libraries (freely reusable images)
- Wikimedia Commons — Archives (archival & records imagery)
- Library of Congress Free to Use (curated public-domain media)
Video, courseware & lectures
- MIT OpenCourseWare (free course materials incl. information systems)
- Khan Academy (foundational study & research skills)
- IFLA on YouTube (webinars & conference talks)
- Library of Congress YouTube (talks on cataloguing & preservation)
Tutorials & OER
- OER Commons — LIS Hub (slides, modules, tutorials)
- Course 15: Navigating Research Guides (FRELIP multimedia walkthrough)
Free tools for managing references, identifying yourself as a researcher, and finding full text.
Reference managers
- Zotero (free, open-source reference manager)
- JabRef (open-source BibTeX manager)
- ZoteroBib (quick bibliographies, no install)
- Course 12: Citation & Referencing (learn citation tools)
Researcher identity & profiles
Find full text
- Unpaywall (browser extension for legal OA copies)
- CORE Discovery (find free full text)
Analysis & metadata
- MarcEdit (free MARC metadata editing for librarians)
- OpenRefine (clean & reconcile messy data)
- Course 13: Data Management for Researchers (RDM tools & practice)
The rules that make open work: licences, OA policies, repository registries and metadata/accessibility standards.
Creative Commons & licensing
- Creative Commons Licences (the standard open licences)
- CC Licence Chooser (pick the right licence)
OA policy & repository registries
- Sherpa Romeo (publisher self-archiving policies)
- Sherpa Juliet (funder OA policies)
- OpenDOAR (directory of OA repositories)
- ROAR (registry of OA repositories)
- Plan S / cOAlition S (international OA mandate)
- DORA (responsible research assessment)
- Course 36: Open Science & Responsible Research Assessment
Metadata & accessibility standards
- Dublin Core (DCMI Terms) (core metadata standard)
- WCAG Accessibility Guidelines (accessible web & digital content)
Professional bodies to join and FRELIP courses to keep growing your LIS practice.
Learned societies & associations
- IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations)
- ICA (International Council on Archives)
- ASIS&T (Association for Information Science & Technology)
- ALA (American Library Association)
- AfLIA — African Library & Information Associations & Institutions (the continental LIS body)
- LIASA (Library & Information Association of South Africa)
Keep learning (FRELIP Moodle)
Need help?
- FRELIP Search (find anything across the eLibrary)
- FRELIP Learning (all courses)
- Email a librarian: info@frelip.org