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University of Texas University of Texas Libraries

K-12 Textbooks

Historic Textbooks

Accessing Our Historical Textbook Collection

A sampling of old textbooks from most subjects and time periods can be found by browsing the Textbook Collection on the 6th floor of PCL (Section S). However, for preservation reasons, a majority of our oldest textbooks are housed in our Library Storage Facility. To request that they be brought to campus for your use, follow these steps...

  1. Locate the book you need in the catalog
  2. Click the "Pick It Up" button
  3. Enter your EID and complete the screens asking you to specify the item and choose a pickup location
  4. Within 1-2 business days you will receive an email letting you know the requested item is available for pickup at your chosen location. Unless the item is in disrepair, you'll be able to borrow the book for the standard loan period.

Digitized Texts

Many books published before 1923 are no longer protected by copyright.  Some of these texts have been digitized and are freely available online. The following resources to include historic textbooks and readers online:

Early American Imprints

Primary Readers from Archive.org

Readers from Hathitrust (you can limit by date along the left)

Google Books

If You Can't Find It...

Can't find what you want at the UT Libraries or online? Try searching WorldCat.org, a huge shared catalog of U.S. Libraries.

If another library owns materials you'd like to use in your research, submit a loan request through InterLibrary Loan, and we'll see if they're willing to loan a copy.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 Generic License.