Subject Guide: Computer Science

O'Reilly Learning

Open Textbook Library

ScienceDirect

O'Reilly Learning

SUMMARY

Imagine an entire digital library of the latest information on software, business, and technology, organized into books, courses, and videos that can be accessed for free as a library database. Readers may be familiar with O’Reilly Books that appear on library shelves in their physical forms, teaching them about various software and programming languages, but the O’Reilly Learning database provides these books in digital form at the click of a button. Popular series such as the “for dummies” series, as well as popular nonfiction titles on productivity and business such as The 12 Week Year, fill this database with many titles that could be useful to a wide audience. For the computer science student, resources on specific programming languages and computing topics like software architecture and IT/Ops will offer numerous options for exploring these areas more deeply.

EVALUATION

A basic search appears at the top of the page, allowing the user to search through the repository of books, courses, and events in a database that claims over 96,026 results. An advanced search is not offered, but a faceted search is made possible by a series of filters along the left-hand side. Users can narrow down the results by format, skills (best understood as subjects, programming languages, and software), publication date, ratings, publishers, level, language, and duration. They can also sort the results by relevance, popularity, rating, and dates including the added date, publication date, and last updated date. The publication date facet reveals that 14,943 of the 96,026 results were published in the last 2 years, with no clear way to reveal the oldest works in the database. Items are included up through March 2025, with some “early release” titles from 2026 also available.

The content is entirely “full-text” items such as complete textbooks, digital courses, and audiobooks. They are not peer-reviewed but are published through traditional publishing means, with numerous presses and publishing companies contributing works, including McGraw-Hill and those led by software companies such as Microsoft Press. Users do not have a way to save searches and results, though they can add items to personal “playlists,” as well as tracking their history and highlighting and notes within the books they read on the platform. The intended audience is one that’s interested in learning the details of software, computing, and other topics like art and business, which could range from a general public audience, to students, to business leaders.

This database was found through the College of DuPage Library website, under “Databases,” with the list narrowed to the subject “Computer Science.” I have also encountered this database through the catalog, when books appear as “available online,” and to access the books you are taken to the O’Reilly database.

Open Textbook Library

SUMMARY

Not everyone has access to a library -- but everyone deserves a chance to learn. This is the main principle behind the Open Textbook Library, a website listing openly licensed textbooks that can be accessed, read, and shared by everyone, with no official affiliation required. Browse the site to find textbooks on a multitude of subjects, including an entire section devoted to Computer Science. Textbooks are licensed under a Creative Commons license which allows the books to be downloaded and used for free without any additional permissions or cost. Reviews provide a thorough exploration of each text (if available), allowing potential readers to get a better idea if a textbook suits their needs. Access an entire library of collegiate-level textbooks to enhance your computer science learning journey.

EVALUATION

The interface of Open Textbook Library is simple. A search bar at the top allows for keyword search, with no advanced search options available. They provide only filters for language, license, format (as in PDF or other file format), and three options for sort: by date added to the library, by faculty rating, and by publication date. The site appears to be continually updated, with their “newest open textbooks” section including books from 2025, and their linked social media accounts updated within the last day. Because there are no accounts or logins to use the site, there is no way to save searches or otherwise create lists of search results.

The content on the site is exclusively textbooks, and all are full-text. However, because they are submitted as open textbooks under a Creative Commons license, the site makes no claim on the verified quality of the books other than their established criteria: they must be in use at multiple higher education institutions or otherwise affiliated with a higher education organization. Therefore they must have met the educational and professional criteria for those institutions. Beyond that, they offer the ability for faculty to leave reviews in order to offer their judgment of a textbook’s quality. Users of the site may see these reviews and make their own decisions. The primary intended audience for this database is faculty looking for open textbooks they can use for their classes, but anyone can access these textbooks and use them to further their own understanding of various topics, including computer science.

This resource was suggested to me by my professor as a useful source of computer science-related textbooks.

ScienceDirect

SUMMARY

Whether for a class assignment or for the precocious self-guided learner ready for the next step, you might find yourself in need of more specific and advanced research on the topic of computer science. Here is where the database ScienceDirect comes to the rescue. This database is a source of peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters on a variety of scientific topics, including computer science, with nearly 3,000 publications (including journals and books) in that subject area alone. Similar to other academic databases, their primary offerings are research articles, with PDF and full-text options and information on citations and recommendations for related reading. While the content is more specific to advanced research, this resource could be very helpful for finding out more information on a detailed topic -- and to get a sense of the most cutting edge research developments in the field.

EVALUATION

Powered by Elsevier, ScienceDirect offers a basic title search for journals and books, but it also links to an “advanced search” option that offers further specificity by year, author, and terms. Users can filter by subject area and secondary subject area, as well as by publication type, access type (whether or not it offers open access), and whether or not the journal accepts submissions. When looking at more advanced searches for terms within articles, the results can be filtered by article type, language, access type, and year of publication. Results can be sorted by relevance or date. Search results can be downloaded to a file that could be saved for future use, and a login is also available presumably to save and organize searches. In one particular random search, the most recent article was dated with yesterday’s date (March 24, 2025), and the earliest was hard to determine but there were results as early as 1900.

The site claims that 3.3 million articles are open access, peer-reviewed and freely available for all. For those journals whose work is not open access, you may be required to access through an educational or professional organization, such as your library. The primary audience for ScienceDirect appears to be academics looking to publish their own work, as they even offer a “compare” option for journals for this purpose, but some of this functionality could also be useful to the student researcher. And the wide array of open access material could not only offer plenty of reading material, but also give you a sense of what current research in the field of computer science is covering.

This database was found through the College of DuPage Library website, under “Databases,” with the list narrowed to the subject “Computer Science.”

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O'Reilly Learning

Open Textbook Library

ScienceDirect

Jaimie Huber