LibGuides: Manufacturing Engineering: Resources for Alumni & Others

Free Open Access Resources for Alumni and Others

Due to vendors' licensing restrictions, the library's subscribed research databases and subscribed journals are only available for remote access to current students, faculty, and staff. If you are on campus and have alumni access to the University's WiFi network or if you can access the EduRoam network you should have access to most of the resources listed for current students, faculty, and staff.

If you are unable to visit campus and are not a member of the Illinois Tech community, the following list of high quality resources are wholly or partially free for all users. If specific content is behind a paywall, try contacting your local library to see if they can request the item for you at no charge. Most libraries, including public libraries, offer this service, often known as Interlibrary Loan.

For more information about our alumni and guest services, see our Services for Alumni page and our Visitor Policy.

BASE - Bielefeld Academic Search Engine
BASE is one of the world's most extensive search engines of networked academic resources. BASE provides more than 150 million documents from more than 7,000 sources, including Illinois Tech's Institutional Repository. You can access the full texts of about 60% of the indexed documents for free (Open Access). BASE is operated by Bielefeld University Library.
City of Chicago Data Portal
More than 200 datasets about Chicago departments, services, facilities and performance.
CumInCAD
CumInCAD is a cumulative index of publications about computer-aided architectural design. It includes bibliographic information about over 8,700 records from journals and conferences such as ACADIA, CAADRIA, eCAADe, SiGraDi, CAAD futures, DDSS and others. All papers include full abstracts. Full texts, in PDF, of some 6,000 papers are also available.
Data Repositories on OAD
The Open Access Directory (OAD) maintains a list of open data repositories as part o their website. While not searchable, the list is broken out by subject area.
Data.gov
Data.gov is a searchable database of public datasets maintained by the U.S. General Services Administration. In addition to the searchable web interface, there are also a number of free APIs.
Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB)
DOAB is a community-driven discovery service that indexes and provides access to scholarly, peer-reviewed open access books and helps users to find trusted open access book publishers. All DOAB services are free of charge and all data is freely available.
DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals)
DOAJ is a community-curated online directory that indexes and provides access to high quality, open access, peer-reviewed journals. DOAJ can also be used as a "whitelist" by researchers wishing to identify high quality open access journals to publish their research.
DTIC Online: Public Technical Reports
The Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC®) serves the DoD community as the largest central resource for DoD and government-funded scientific, technical, engineering, and business related information available today .
Engineering Technology
This website consists of a series of 3D simulations on engineering technology topics. These simulations, developed by e-Learning Company Lucid Way, are approximately from 2-9 minutes long and are used as part of their curriculum to help students quickly and thoroughly grasp the concepts being presented in a visual format.
EPA Science Inventory
This resource is a searchable, agency-wide catalog of more than 4,000 science activities such as research, technical assistance and assessments. The database contains more than 19,000 records in the archives including project descriptions, products produced, types of peer review, links to related work and contacts for additional information. Users can conduct keyword searches or search within nine cross-cutting science topics.
Ethics Code Collection
The Ethics Codes Collection is the largest online repository of ethics codes and guidelines in the world. With over 2500 individual codes and guidelines from over 1500 organizations around the world, including current and historical codes dating to 1887, it is maintained by the Center for the Study of Ethics in the Professions at Illinois Institute of Technology.
Google Dataset search
Google Dataset Search is a search engine for datasets. Using a simple keyword search, users can discover freely available datasets hosted in thousands of open access repositories across the Web.
IQS (Industrial Quick Search) Directory
Best Bet
IQS Directory is a FREE, comprehensive listing of manufacturers and suppliers serving major segments of the OEM industrial manufacturing marketplace across the United States and Canada. Industrial engineers and buyers rely on IQS Directory to specify products within a series of categories and buy products directly from manufacturers.
LibreTexts
The LibreTexts mission is to unite students, faculty, and scholars in a cooperative effort to develop an easy-to-use online platform for the construction, customization, and dissemination of OERs to reduce the burdens of unreasonable textbook costs to our students and society.
Mason OER Metafinder (MOM)
The Mason OER Metafinder allows you to simultaneously search across the multiple OER repositories (e.g., MERLOT II, OAOpen.org, OER Commons, OpenStax CNX, etc.) as well as many open archival repositories (e.g. HathiTrust, Internet Archive, Project Gutenberg, etc.).
MatWeb - Material Property Data
MatWeb is a searchable database of more than 135,000 manufactured materials including physical properties, composition, trade names, manufacturers, and other information.
Merlot
The MERLOT system provides access to curated online learning and support materials and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers.
NTRL- National Technical Reports Library
The NTRL fills a recognized void in access to a large collection of historical and current government technical reports that exists in many academic, public, government, and corporate libraries. Through NTRL, NTIS provides a comprehensive offering that delivers high-quality government technical content in all subject areas directly and seamlessly to the user's desktop.
OER Commons
OER Commons is a collection of free open educational resources, such as recorded class lectures, exercises, and document spanning all subjects and all age groups from preschool through college-level.
Open Library
The eCampusOntario Open Library provides educators and learners with access to more than 500 free and openly-licensed educational resources.
Open Textbook Library
Launched by the University of Minnesota, the Open Textbook Library hosts a large collection of openly licensed, peer-reviewed textbooks in all subject areas.
OpenDOAR (Directory of Open Access Repositories)
OpenDOAR is the quality-assured, global Directory of Open Access Repositories. We host repositories that provide free, open access to academic outputs and resources. Each repository record within OpenDOAR has been carefully reviewed and processed by a member of our editorial team which enables us to offer a trusted service for the community.
Openly Available Sources Integrated Search (OASIS)
OASIS is a search tool that aims to make the discovery of open content easier. OASIS currently searches open content from 117 different sources and contains 388,707 records. OASIS is being developed at SUNY Geneseo's Milne Library.
OpenStax
Rice University's resource which contains peer-reviewed open textbooks in science, math, business, and the social sciences.
PATENTSCOPE
Best Bet
PATENTSCOPE is a searchable database 84 million worldwide patent documents including 3.8 million published international patent applications (PCT). Be signing up for a FREE account, users are able to search chemical patents by structure and have access to PATENTSCOPE's cutting edge translation tools for accessing patents in other languages. PATENTSCOPE is a service of WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, an agency of the United Nations.
re3data
Re3data is a global registry of research data repositories that covers research data repositories from different academic disciplines. In addition to the fully functional search and browse features on the website, they offer a free API to facilitate retrieval of data.
Retraction Watch
Retraction watch is a searchable database of research papers that have been retracted due to ethical issues, such as plagiarism, fabrication or falsification of research results, or unauthorized release or publication of data. Because of these problems, retraced papers should not be cited or used in your own research.
Science.gov
Science.gov is a gateway to over 50 million pages of authoritative selected science information provided by U.S. government agencies, including research and development results.
Smithsonian Institute Archives
The Smithsonian Institution Archives captures, preserves, and shares with the public the history of the Institution. From its inception in 1846 to the present, the records of the history of the Institution—its people, its programs, its research, and its stories—have been gathered, organized, and disseminated so that everyone can learn about the Smithsonian and its role in American history, scientific exploration, and with the promotion of international cultural understanding. Subject areas include aerospace engineering, history, manufacturing, and the humanities.
TechRxiv
TechRxiv (pronounced "tech archive") is an open, moderated preprint server for unpublished research in electrical engineering, computer science, and related technology. It is provided by IEEE.
ThomasNet
Online version of the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers. In addition to information on hundreds of B2B industrial suppliers and manufacturers, it includes specifications or links to the specifications of industrial and laboratory equipment.
Note: Requires free personal registration.
TRAIL (Technical Report Archive And Image Library)
The Technical Report Archive & Image Library (TRAIL) is an initiative led by the University of Arizona in collaboration with CRL and other interested agencies to identify, digitize, archive, and provide access to federal technical reports issued prior to 1975.
unpaywall
Unpaywall is a free, open database indexing millions of legally free versions of otherwise paywalled scholarly articles. It also has a downloadable browser extension that integrates into the Chrome and Firefox browsers, allowing users to access millions of legally free research papers as they browse.
USPTO - U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Database of all U.S. patents issued since 1790.
WorldWideScience.org
WorldWideScience.org, developed and maintained by the Office of Scientific and Technical Information in partnership with the British Library, is a global science gateway enablling federated searching of national and international scientific databases. Users get the most current findings in fields such as energy, medicine, agriculture, environment, and basic sciences, published by contributing nations. WorldWideScience.org is a global science gateway comprised of national and international scientific databases and portals. Multilingual WorldWideScience.org provides real-time searching and translation of globally-dispersed multilingual scientific literature.

Manufacturing Engineering

Manufacturing Engineering Librarian

Aric Ahrens

Related Subjects

Free Open Access Resources for Alumni and Others