Mark's free (legal) technical e-books links

Technology

High Tech, low-tech, old-tech, appropriate technology. Those in the public domain can also be useful as clip art sources for writing tutorials.

At first count, this page had around 200 free technical books, including 50 books on machining, 9 on welding, 23 on material properties, 1 on blacksmithing, 6 on other metalworking, 2 on woodworking, 2 on hydraulics, 6 on motors and generators, 7 on drafting, 21 on electronics, 2 on thermal engineering, 8 on physics, 22 DOE handbooks, 35 tube era electronics, 3 on chemistry, 5 on Units of Measurement, and 4 related to CAD, and misc others.

Machining

Many of these books are of order 100 years old but manual machining practice hasn't changed that much in that time period. Today we have CNC and better alloys. Also, back then they might be more likely to make a tool than buy one so the age of the books can be a benefit.

• US Army TC 9-524: Fundamentals of Machine Tools (public domain) (multiple PDFs) (metalwebnews) [local copy]
• Modern Machine Shop Practice, Vol 1 - (1888), expired copyright, bitmap PDFs [local copy]
• Modern Machine Shop Practice, Vol 2
• The Advanced Machinist, a practical and educational treatise, with illustrations (1903), expired copyright. Over 657 pages. Some distortion (skew) on bottoms of pages. [local copy]
• American Machinists' Handbook - Before Machinery's handbook, there was American Machinists' Handbook which was published between 1908 and 1955. The 1914 edition (copyright expired) is available from google books. [local copy]
• Metalcraft Screw Cutting Lathe Manual (1933) (Copyright expired???)
• Ames Bench Lathes & Bench Millers - (year?) (old catalog) (copyright???)
• Gorton 1-22 Mastermill Manuals (copyright???)
• Gorton 0-16A Mill & Duplicator Manual
• Text-book of Advanced Machine Work: Prepared for Students in Technical..." (1919) (714 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Machine Shop Work: A Comprehensive Manual of Approved Shop Methods ... (1919) (345 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Mathematics for Machinists (1915) (229 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Shop Mathematics (1922) (321 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• The Complete Practical Machinist: Embracing Lathe Work, Vise Work, Drills... (1876) (372 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Modern Shop Practice: A General Reference Work (1917) (361 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Machine-shop tools and Methods (1908) (571 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Accurate Tool Work (1908) (217 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Methods of Machine Shop Work: For Apprentices and Students in Technical and ... (1914) (286 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Mechanical Engineering and Machine Shop Practice (1908) (502 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• The Modern Practice of American Machinists & Engineers including the construction, application, and use of drills, lathe tools, cutters for boring cylinders and hollow work generally ... together with workshop management, economy of manufacture, the steam-engine ... etc. etc. (1882) (270 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Cyclopedia of Modern Shop Practice: A Manual of Shop Practice, Pattern ... (1906) (google books) Note: This is the same as "Modern Shop Practice" but differerent edition/publisher. [local copy]
• Machine Shop Practice: A Manual for Apprentices and Journeyman Machinists... (1914) (199 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• The Advanced Machinist: A Practical and Education Treatise, with Illustrations (1903) (334 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Machine Tools and Workshop Practice for Engineering Students and Apprentices (1905) (444 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Things that are Usually Wrong (1905) (52 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• The American Machinist Shop Note Book: A Collection of Articles (1919) (301 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• 20th Century Machine Shop Practice: Arithmetic, Practical Geometry ... (1906) (631 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Shop and Foundry Practice: Prepared for Students of the International Correspondence Schools (1901) (google books) [local copy]
• The Principles of Fitting: For Engineers, Apprentices, and Students in ... (1919) (426 pages) (google books)
  Lots of pictures of hand tools [local copy]
• Railway Shop kinks (1911) (290 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Repair Kinks (1908) (102 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Practical Planer Kinks for Planer Hands (1905) (80 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Shop Kinks and Machine-shop Chat: A Series of Over Five Hundred Practical ... (1896) (google books) [local file]
• The Third Power Kink Book: A Collection of Short Articles from Power ... (1921) (264 pages) (google books) [local file]
• Shop Kinks: Showing Special Ways of Doing Work Beter, More Cheaply, and ... ... (1896) (google books) [local copy]
• Making the Small Shop Profitable (1918)(113 pages) (Google Books) [local copy]
• Machine Tools and Their Operation ... (1922) (90 Pages)(google books) [local copy]
• Popular Mechanics Shop Notes (1922)(90 Pages)(google books) [local copy]
• Text-book of the Princples of Machine Work by Robert H Smith is often cited (at least 141 cites on google books) (circa 1912) (438 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• Precision, locating and dividing methods (1914)(internet archive) [local copy]
• The Starret book for machinists' apprentices (1917) (197 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• The American machinists shop note book: a collection of articles (1919) (330 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• The theory of shrinkage and forced fits, with tabulated data and examples from practice (1912) (52 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• The progressive machinist: A practical and educational treatise, with illustrations (1903) (366 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• Tools and patterns (1920) (476 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• Extracts from Chordal's letters. Comprising the choicest selections from the series of articles entitled "Extracts from Chordal's letters," which have been appearing for the past two years in the columns of the American machinist. With steel portrait of the author; - (1883) (436 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• Shop problems in mathematics (1910) (300 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• The economy of workshop manipulation. A logical method of learning constructive mechanics. Arranged with questions for the use of apprentice engineers and students (1876) (218 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• Production engineering and cost keeping, for machine shops (1922) (332 pages) (internet archive) [local copy]
• See also: Google books subject:"Machine-shop practice" (58 books)
• US Navy Machinist Courses
  NAVEDTRA 14008 Aviation Machinist's Mate 3 & 2 [local copy]
  NAVEDTRA 14150 Machinist's Mate 1 & C (Surface) [local copy]
  NAVEDTRA 14151 Machinist's Mate 3 & 2 (Surface) [local copy]
• See also: Internet Archive: subject: "Machine-shop practice"
• Missing: Can someone find and scan a 1914 copy (1st edition) of Machinery's handbook? And the old machinery magazines?

Welding

• US Navy: S0300-BB-MAN-010 Underwater Welding and Cutting [local copy]
• US Army Corps of Engineers Technical Instructions TI-809-26 Welding - Design Proceedures and Inspections
  "Any copyrighted material included in this document is identified at its point of use. Use of the copyrighted material apart from this document must have the permission of the copyright holder." (no such material appears to be present) [local copy] (2000) (129 pages)
• US Army TM5-805-7: Welding Design, Proceedures, and Inspection (1985) (96 pages) "public property and not subject to copyright" [local copy]
• US Army TC 9-237 Operator's Circular: Welding Theory and Applications (1993) (765 pages) (has welding symbols for drafting)
[local copy]
• Naval Ships' Technical Manual S9086-CH-STM-010/CH-074R4 Welding and Allied Processes (1999) (122 pages) [local copy]
• US Army - Welding Theory & Application(744 pages) [local copy]
• Project Gutenberg Edition of Oxy-Acetylene Welding and Cutting: Electric, Forge and Thermit Welding, Together with Related Methods and Materials Used in Metal Working and The Oxygen Process for Removal of Carbon
[local copy]
• See also: NIST Manufacturing Engineering Laboratory

Material Properties

• DOT/FAA/AR-MMPDS-01 Metallic Materials Properties Development and Standardization (MMPDS) 1728 pages. The NTIS sells this for $228 on paper or $168 on single user CD-ROM, yet as a government publication it should exempt from copyright (and indeed has no copyright notice). Supercedes MIL-HDBK-5, and required by the FAA. Was available for free download from FAA but they keep moving it. This has been succeeded by MMPDS-02 and MMPDS-03 ($600) which is supposedly "licensed exclusively to Battelle Memorial Institute". Now, they may have contracted battelle to do the revisions on 02/03 (in which case it isn't a government product) and thus the public's rights have been sold down the river in yet another case of corruption. But -01 has no copyright notice and purports to be the work of a government agency. MMPDS-01 is reportly "technically identical to" MIL-HDBK-5 and part of the transition from DOD to FAA and the differences in the 02/03 versions is the addition of newer materials more than corrections of old material. [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-5J: Metallic Materials and Elements for Aerospace Vehicle Structures (1773 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-17/1F Composit Materials Handbook vol 1 - Polymer Matrix Composites Guidelines for Characterization of Structural Materials
  MIL-HDBK-17/2F Composite Materials Handbook vol 2 - Polymer Matrix Composites Materials Properties
  MIL-HDBK-17/3F Composite Materials Handbook Vol 3 - Polymer Matrix Composites Materials Usage, Design, and Analysis
  MIL-HDBK-17/4A Composite Materials Handbook vol 4 - Metal Matrix Composites
  MIL-HDBK-17/5 Composite Materials Handbook Vol 5 - Ceramic Matrix Composites (enter MIL-HDBK-17 into the search box) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-23: Composite Construction for Flight Vehicles, Structural Sandwich Composites (pieces missing)
• Army Correspondence Course Program Subcourse OD1643: Metal Properties, Characteristics, Uses & Codes (54 pages) [local copy]
• Naval Ships' Technical Manual S9086-H7-STM-010/CH-262R4 Lubricating Oils, Grease, Speciality Lubricants and Equipment (92 pages) [local copy]
• Nonferrous Metals: Industry Structure (93 pages) Office of Technology Assistance Report (US government - public domain). Doesn't tell you about the materials themselves, but where they come from. [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-700A: Plastics (1975)(300 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-754: Plastic Matrix Composites with Continuous fiber reinforcement (1991) (100 pages) [local copy]
• MILHDBK-722: Glass (1969) (86 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-755: Plastic Material Properties for Engineering Design (1991) (125 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-694A: Aluminum and Aluminum Alloys (1966) (106 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-697A: Titaniam and Titanium Alloys (1974) (122 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-698A: Copper and Copper Alloys (1971) (151 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-695D: Rubber Products: Recommended shelf life (1999) (43 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-699B: A Guide to the Specifications for Flexible Rubber Products (1977) (123 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-723A: Steel and Iron Wrought Products (1970) (165 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-797: Polyamide (Nylon) Plastics: Properties, processing, performance, and Military Applications (1994) (138 pages) [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-843: Ship Metallic Material Comparison (1993) (120 pages) [local copy]
• See also: NIST Materials Science and Engineering labratory
• NIST: Properties of Lead free Solders

Blacksmithing

• Farm Blacksmithing(1901) [local copy]
• See also: Farm Shop Practice

Other Metalworking

• US Navy Steelworker Volume 1 [local copy]
• US Navy Steelworker Volume 2 [local copy]
• US Army Non Destructive Testing [local copy]
• Explosive Forming - An overview paper
• Fundamentals of Die Casting, dual license GPL or the author's own license. Also listed on textbookrevolution.org [local copy]
• US Navy Metalworking Courses
  US Navy course - Hull Maintenance Technician NAVEDTRA 14119.pdf
  US Navy course - Steelworker, Volume 1 NAVEDTRA 14250.pdf
  US Navy course - Steelworker, Volume 2 NAVEDTRA 14251.pdf
  Note that the last two are probably the same as the files available without bittorrent above.
• Army Correspondence Course Program Subcourse OD1646: Bandsaw Operations (93 pages) [local copy]

Woodworking

• Farm Shop Practice(1939) (324 pages). This book was published after 1923 and does have a proper copyright notice; however, it does not appear to have been renewed. Also has some metalworking. [local copy]

Architecture and Structural Engineering

MIL-HDBK-1000 series covers structural engineering, although the density of useful information does not appear, at first glance, to be very high.

Hydraulics

• US Army - Hydraulics Manual
• US Navy - Fluid Power Manual (DOE)

Audel's

• Audels Gas Engine Manual: A Practical Tretise Relating to the theory and ... (1908) (491 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Audels Engineers and Mechanics Guide 5 (1921) (551 pages) (google books) [local copy]
• Audels Answers on Refrigeration and Ice Making (1941) (701 pages) (google books)
• Audels (1913) (337 pages) (google books) (Not a good scan, the left side of many TOC pages is missing) [local copy]
• Audel's Ship Fitters' Guide: (1919) (183 pages) (google books) [local copy]

Stirling Engines

• See also: google books stirling engine search

Motors and Generators

• US Navy - Electric Motors and Controllers (1999) (50 pages) [local copy]
• US Navy nonresident training course US Navy - Generators and Motors [local copy]
• NAVEDTRA 14177: Navy Electricity and Electronics Training Series; module 5 - Introduction to Generators and Motors
• Energy Management for Motor Drive Systems . Misc Pamphlets also available.
• Improving Fan System Performance: A Sourcebook for Industry (DOE)
• Improving Pumping System Performance: A Sourcebook for Industry

Drafting

• US Navy Nonresident training course NAVEDTRA 14040 Blueprint Reading and Sketching (177 pages) [local copy]
• US Army Principals of Drafting and Shop Drawings (corrupted file) [local copy]
• US Navy Drafting courses (1994) (bittorrent). Link to a pirate site, of all places, but the contents should be public domain.
  US Navy course - Illustrator Draftsman Volume 1, Equipment NAVEDTRA 14332.pdf
  US Navy course - Illustrator Draftsman Volume 2, Standard Drafting Practices and Theory NAVEDTRA 14276.pdf
  US Navy course - Illustrator Draftsman Volume 3, Executionable Practices NAVEDTRA 14333.pdf
  US Navy course - Illustrator Draftsman Volume 4, Presentations Graphics NAVEDTRA 14334.pdf
  [local copy]
• ED422485 Computer-Aided Drafting and Design Series. Educational Resources for the Machine Tool Industry, Course Syllabi, [and] Instructor's Handbook. Student Laboratory Manual. (US Department of Education), prepared by Texas State Technical College, NSF funded, 678 page PDF (scanned).
• US Navy NAVEDTRA 14040 Blueprint Reading and Sketching [local copy]
• MIL-STD-100G: Department of Defense Standard Practice for Engineering Drawings (1997) (84 pages) Not a lot of useful information here as it is following a trend of expunging all the useful information and citing expensive industry standards, which in turn were originally based on the mil-std, and then ceasing publication of the original mil-standards Old versions might be more useful, with MIL-STD-100F probably being the best. [local copy]
• MIL-STD-100F: Department of Defense Standard Practice for Engineering Drawings (190 pages) (the only remaining copy on the net, grab it while you can). Still lacks symbols. DOE-HDBK-1016 has a lot of symbols [local copy] mil-std-100 history
• See also: DOE-HDBK-1016 (in the DOE handbooks section).
• See also: TC 9-237 Army Welding manual for welding symbols

Mechanical Engineering

Fasteners

• ACF Components & Fasteners Handbook 84 pages of fastener dimensions (need to fill out customer contact form to see the whole thing rather than preview a page at a time). Direct link -->

Electronics

• Lessons In Electric Circuits - A 6 Volume textbook
  • Volume I - DC [Local Copy]
  • Volume II - AC [:ocal Copy]
  • Volume III - Semiconductors [local copy]
  • Volume IV - Digital [local copy]
  • Volume V - Reference [local copy]
  • Volume VI - Experiments [local copy]
  Design Science License (copyleft)
• AC Current Theory (redundant - from Lessons in electric circuits)
• DC Current Theory (redundant - from Lessons in electric circuits)
• Naval Ships' Technical Manual S9086-Q5-STM-010/CH-491R1 Electrical Measuring and Test Instruments [local copy]
• Electrical Engineering Handbook (2000) CRC Press, 2676 pages (copyright???)
• united States Navy Electriciity & Electronics Training Series (NEETS) 24 modules, each 100-400 pages long.
  • Mod01 - Matter Energy and DC.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod02 - AC and Transformers.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod03 - Circuit Protection Control and Measurement.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod04 - Conductors Wiring and Schematic Reading.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod05 - Generators and Motors.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod06 - Electronic Emission Tubes and Power Supplies.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod07 - Solid-State Devices and Power Supplies.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod08 - Amplifiers.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod09 - Wave-Generation and Wave-Shapping Circuits.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod10 - Wave Propagation Transmission Lines and Antennas.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod11 - Microwave Principles.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod12 - Modulation Principles.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod13 - Number Systems and Logic Circuits.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod14 - Microelectronics.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod15 - Principles of Synchros Servos and Gyros.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod16 - Test Equipment.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod17 - Radio Frequency Communications Principles.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod18 - Radar Principles.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod19 - The Technicians Handbook.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod20 - Master Glossary.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod21 - Test Methods and Practices.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod22 - Digital Computers.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod23 - Magnetic Recording.pdf [local copy]
  • Mod24 - Fiber Optics.pdf [local copy]
  Alternate source
• The Radio Amateur's Handbook (1922) (expired copyright) (Project Guttenberg) [local copy]
• Wikibook: Circuit Theory
• Basic Electronics (calling this a book is an exageration)
• The Scientist and Engineers Guide to Digital Signal Processing. "This is the free online edition of one of Amazon's bestselling DSP textbooks" (640 pages), See site for license details.
• Newark RoHS Legislation and Technical Manual "© 2005 Premier Farnell plc. Permission is granted for reproduction in whole or in part provided Premier Farnell plc is credited." [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-217 Reliability Prediction of Electronic Equipment, the standard for decades though a bit dated. Widely used in commercial practice.
• MIL-HDBK-338B: Electronic Reliability Design Handbook (1998) (1046 pages) "Approved for public release; distribution is unlimited." [local copy]
• VIAS (Virtual Institute of Applied Science):
  • Basic Radio (1942), 300 pages, 470 figures, Creative Commons License
  • Electronic Transformers (1955), 200 pages, 400 figures, Creative Commons License
  • Fundamentals of Electrical Engineering and Electronics , 700 pages, 2500 figures, Design Science License, based on Lessons in Electric circuits (above) [local copy]
  • Radio Antenna Engineering (1952), 560 pages, 750 figures, Creative Commons License
  • Transistor Basics (1954), 140 pages, 120 figures, Creative Commons
  • Wireless Networking in the Developing World, 140 pages, 120 figures, Creative Commons
  Original version of some of these are available as public domain. Note that the page counts are dubious and may refer to a large number of HTML pages with, in some cases, a small amount of text (plus figures) and lots of ads. They definitely like to blow chunks when generating HTML which means you may spend a lot of time waiting for pages to load and searching and skimming is a problem.
• MIL-HDBK-1250A: Handbook for Corrosion prevention and Deterioration Control in Electronic Components and Assemblies [local copy]
• MIL-HDBK-1547A: Electronic Parts, Materials, and Processes for Space and Launch Vehicles [local copy]
• See also: NIST Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory

Hydroelectric

• The Pelton System of Power, 1906, The Pelton Water Wheel Co (not scanned yet) However, there a search on google books for "pelton wheel" turns up many matches.

Physics

Handbook of Basic Atomic Spectroscopic Data

Astronomy

• VIAS has:
  A trip into Space, 400 pages, 350 photos, creative commons
  Earth from Space, 200pg, 250 photos/maps, CC

Misc

• Six Multimedia Engineering Books from Dr. Kurt Gramoll, Univ. of Oklahoma: Statics, Dynamics, Fluids, Thermodynamics, Basic Math, Multimedia in Engineering. Shockwave and/or quicktime.
• NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods [local copy]
• NIST SP 672: Experimentation and Measurement (127 pages)
• NIST Handbook 135: Life-Cycle Costing Manual
• VIAS has:
  VIAS Encyclopedia (science and engineering), 800pages, Creative Commons
  VIAS Science Cartoons, 75 cartoons, free for non-commercial use
• See Also: The SP 250 Series on NIST Measurement Services

Periodicals

• Spartan Engineer (1948 - 1951), School of Engineering, Michigan State College
• The Speculum (1888-1895)(Michigan State Agricultural College)(copyright expired) (possible appropriate tech source?)
• SMT magazine, one of the free trade rags

Thermal Engineering

• A Heat Transfer Textbook (MIT)
• MIL-HDBK-251: Reliability/Design Thermal Applications

Physics

• NIST Periodic Table: Atomic Properties of the Elements (PDF or TIFF) (authoritative)
• LANL Periodic Table clickable web page, PDF, or microshaft turd file. The PDF version (716 pages) and the web version contains history, sources, properties, and cost info for materials. Note: LANL is run by a corporation, part of the university of California, for the government so it may be freely available but not freely copyable.
• See also: NIST Physics Laboaratory: Articles and Publications
• From Sundials to Atomic Clocks: Understanding Time and Frequency (NIST) (PDF, 306 pages)
• VIAS has:
  Lectures in Physics, 600pg, 500 fig, creative commons

Units of Measurement

• NIST SP 811: NIST Guide to SI - Units [PDF] SP 811 is informative, based on SP 330 [local copy]
• NIST SP 330: The International System of Units [PDF] SP 330 seems to be normative in the US. It is an American translation of the BIPM SI brochure (free french/english) upon which American and International standards are based. (local copy)
• NIST SP 447: Wieghts and Measures Standards of the United States: A brief history [local copy]
• NIST TN 1297 Guidelines for Evaluating and Expressing the Uncertainty of NIST Measurement Results (multiple small web pages) [PDF] (local file)
• NIST Fundamental Physical Constants (many small web pages) ascii list of all constants includes names but not symbols and doesn't include some constants like pi. If you ask for "extensive listings" in "table(pdf) format, however, the symbols are included.
• NIST Periodic Table: Atomic Properties of the Elements

Chemistry

• Pocket Guide to Chemical Hazards (NIOSH) PDF version

Math

• Handbook of Mathematical Functions (with Formulas, Graphs, and Mathematical Tables), M. Abamowitz and I.A. Stegun (AMS55) was published between 1964 and 1972 by the National Bureau of Standards. The government sells it (as do a number of commercial publishers) rather than making it available for free download but by virtue of being authored by the government it should legally be public domain. Note that this is the 55th volume of the Applied Mathematic Series - might be worth checking out the others. Successor to be released as Digital library of mathematical functions using MathML. [local copy]

Wiki's

• Appropriate Technology Wiki
• Open Circuits Wiki
• VIAS has:
  Elementary Calclus, 1100 pg, 250 fig, creative commons
  Fundamentals of Statistics, 460pg, 380fig, creative commons
  Learning by Simulations, free for non-commercial use

CAD

• Model Theory, Algebra, and Geometry
• Comparison Geometry
• Mathematical Tools for Physics
• Computer Aids for VLSI Design

History of Technology

DOE Handbooks

• DOE-HDBK-1010-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Classical Physics (142 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1011/1-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Electrical Science, Volume 1 of 4 [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1011/2-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Electrical Science, Volume 2 of 4 (118 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1011/3-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Electrical Science, Volume 3 of 4 (126 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1011/4-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Electrical Science, Volume 4 of 4 (142 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1012/1-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, and Fluid Flow, Volume 1 of 3 (138 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1012/2-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, and Fluid Flow, Volume 2 of 3 (80 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1012/3-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Thermodynamics, Heat Transfer, and Fluid Flow, Volume 3 of 3 (82 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1013/1-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Instrumentation and Control, Volume 1 of 2 (132 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1013/2-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Instrumentation and Control, Volume 2 of 2 (168 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1014/1-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Mathematics Volume 1 of 2 (206 pages) PDF [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1014/2-92 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Mathematics Volume 2 of 2 (112 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1015/1-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Chemistry, Volume 1 of 2 (140 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1015/2-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Chemistry, Volume 2 of 2 (138 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1016/1-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Engineering Symbology, Prints, and Drawings, Volume 1 of 2 (120 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1016/2-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Engineering Symbology, Prints, and Drawings, Volume 2 of 2 (96 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1017/1-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Material Science, Volume 1 of 2 (102 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1017/2-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Material Science, Volume 2 of 2 (112 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1018/1-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Mechanical Science, Volume 1 of 2 (139 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1018/2-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Mechanical Science, Volume 2 of 2 (130 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1019/1-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Nuclear Physics and Reactor Theory, Volume 1 of 2 (142 pages) [local copy]
• DOE-HDBK-1019/2-93 DOE Fundamentals Handbook, Nuclear Physics and Reactor Theory, Volume 2 of 2 (128 pages) [local copy]

Pete Millett's Collection

Pete Millett's Technical books online

I've found that most of the technical books published before about 1964 never had their copyrights renewed, so now are in the public domain.  So I am endeavoring to digitize and post some selected books relating to the "vacuum tube age" of electronics here. "

Titles are listed below, but follow the link above to his website for more detailed descriptions:

• Amplifier Builders Guide, Hugo Gernsback, 1947, 64 pages
• Audels Radiomans Guide, Edwin P. Anderson, 1945, 880 pages
• Basic Radio - The Essentials of Electron tubes and their Circuits, J. Barton Hoag, 1942, 379 pages
• http://www.pmillett.com/Books/hoag.pdf
• Basic Theory and Applications of Electron Tubes, Departments of the Army and Air Force, 1952, 215 pages
• The Cathode-ray tube at Work, John F. Rider, 1935, 336 pages
• Coyne Electrical and Radio Trouble Shooting Manual, Coyne Electrical School, 1946, 612 pages
• Dynamical Analogies, Harry F. Olson, 1943, 190 pages - Courtesy of John Atwood
• Electron-Tube Circuits, Samuel Seely, 1950, 530 pages
• Electron Tube Design, RCA, 1963, 943 (!!) pages - Courtesy of John Atwood
• NEW - Electron Tubes in Industry, Keith Henney and James Fahnestock, 1952, 353 pages
• Electronic Amplifier Circuits, Joseph Petit and Malcolm McWhorter, 1961, 325 pages
• Electronic Circuits and Tubes, Cruft Laboratory at Harvard University, 1947, 994 pages - Courtesy of Jim McConville
• Electronic Transformers and Circuits, Reuben Lee, 1955, 349 pages - Courtesy of John Atwood
• Engineering Electronics, George Happell and Wilfred Hesselberth, 1953, 508 pages - Courtesy of Earles McCaul
• Getting the Most Out of Vacuum Tubes, Robert Tomer, 1960, 164 pages - Courtesy of John Atwood
• High-Fidelity Circuit Design, Norman Crowhurst and George Cooper, 1957, 296 pages - Courtesy of John Atwood
• Grondslagen van de Radiobuizentechniek, Philips'  Gloeilampenfabrieken te Einhioven, 1943, 505 pages - Courtesy of John Atwood
• Inside the Vacuum Tube, John F, Rider, 1945, 407 pages- Courtesy of Earles McCaul
• Magnetic Amplifiers, Paul Mali, 1960, 101 pages
• Magnetic Recording - Wire and Tape, M. L. Quartermaine, 1952, 72 pages
• http://www.pmillett.com/Books/att_principles.pdf
• http://www.pmillett.com/Books/reich_principles.pdf
• Radio Amateur's Handbook, American Radio relay League, 1936, 536 pages
• Radio Amateur's Handbook, American Radio relay League, 1941, 552 pages
• The Radio Handbook, William Orr (editor), 15th edition 1959, 810 (!) pages
• The Radio Handbook, Editors and Engineers, 7th edition 1940, 608 pages
• Radio Engineering Principles, Henri Lauer and Harry Brown, 2nd edition 1928, 310 pages
• Radio Receivers (AF Manual 100-5), Department of the Air Force, 1958, 175 pages - Courtesy of Chuck McGregor, N7RHU
• Radio Receiver  Design (Part 2), K. R. Sturley, 1945, 435 pages - Courtesy of John Atwood
• Radiotron Designer's Handbook, Third Edition, P. Langford Smith, 1941, 352 pages
• Reference Data For Radio Engineers, Federal Telephone and Radio, 1946, 335 pages
• Theory and Applications of Electron tubes, Herbert Reich, 2nd edition 1941, 716 pages
• Theory of Thermionic Vacuum Tubes, E. Leon Chaffee, Ph.D.,  1933, 652 pages - Courtesy of Joe Sousa (who actually bought this book and had it delivered to me to scan!)
• Vacuum Tube Design, RCA, 1940, 260 pages - Courtesy of John Atwood

Sources

• Metal Web News - source of a lot of the metalworking and military books
• Michigan State University Libraries - source of Modern Machine Shop Practice and The Advanced Machinist
• techbooksforfree.com - Mostly Programming, some science
• The National Academies Press has 3700 free ebooks. These appear to be mostly study reports.
• EBOOKEE (annoying download tickets)
• Project Gutenberg In addtion to thousands of free ebooks, they have lists of copyright renewals which you can use to help identify which copyrights have not expired. Science bookshelf. Their stuff tends to be very old and more literary than technical.
• Some engineering books on rapidshare at eboookee.net (download tickets)
• Distributed Proofreaders Helps convert scans of public domain (expired copyright) books into text.
• University of Pennsylvania online books page lists over 25000 free books online. Organized by library of congress call numbers. T: Technology Section (keep hitting next). Q: Science. They also have a list of some sources for New Original books
• Wikisource and WikiBooks. Most wikibooks are pretty ssketchy.
• Open Source Books
• Textbook Revolution. Engineering, Math, Physics, chemistry, computers, etc. There is also the Open Courseware finder
• University of California escholorship editions from various academic presses. Free to University of california faculty, staff, and students, 2000 books, while maybe a few hundered are availible to the public. Mostly non-technical and what tech was availible probably had limited use outside academia.
• Directory of Open Access Journals
• Office of Technology Assessment Publications Mirrored at Princeton now that OTA is defunct. Mostly policy related.
• A large collection of military field manuals can be browsed online (but not downloaded) at globalsecurity. A DVD full of manuals can be purchased from www.militaryebooks.com for $50. steve's pages has a large ccollection, individually downloadable (but not the interesting ones listed here). All the EM manuals can be browsed/downloaded at Army Corps of Engineers
• ebooks.com sells books in electronic (PDF) format. Lists PDF security settings in item description.
• DOE handbooks and technical standards
• www.usa.gov (formerly firstgov)
• Los Alamos National Laboratory, materials science
• US Government Printing Office sells government publications. You can search for publications of interest, then see if they are online (indirect links provided).
• weibull.com has a number of MIL-HDBKs and MIL-STDs available for download.
• assist.daps.dla.mil has MIL-HDBKs availible to download, even hard to find ones.
• Google Books - The advanced search form doesn't have a "copyright expired" or "public domain" search critera. However, you can search by publication year and you can search for books with "Full View". I wish I had realized that earlier. A search on "machining OR machinery OR machinists OR metalworking" returns a staggering 8860 matches.
• The internet archive has a very large collection of old books
• mymilspec.com has a large number of mil-std documents.

Computers

There are a lot of online computer books. I don't have time to link them right now. A few notable titles I have used in the past include: Linux Device Drivers, Grokking the Gimp, DocBook: The Definitive Guide, Xlib Refernce Manual (and the rest of the X11 books),

• Care and Handling Guide for the Preservation of CDs and DVDs (SP 500-252)
• O'reilly Open Books
• Tech Tool Blog Online Programming Books. Around 345 books.
• Mathematical Illustratons: A manual of geometry and PostScript - can be downloaded from author's web page for personal use.
• List of government databases in science & technology
• NTIS has 2 million government publications. Generally not free.
• The US DOE has a number of Best Practices documents, relating to energy efficiency. Many documents on Motors
• Computer Security Publications at NIST including SP 800-12 An Introduction to Computer Secuirty: The NIST Handbook
• Combatindex.com has lots of MIL-STD and MIL-HDBK documents. Need to go back and browse those.
• Virtual Institute of Appliated Science (VIAS) has a bunch of ebooks under creative commons license. Need to add here.

Government Agencies

Theses and Dissertations

• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations

Non-free

• Appropriate Technology Library CD-ROMs 1050 books on CD, Many still in print
• The Public Domain: How to find & Use Copyright-Free Writings, Music, Art & More

Subscription Libraries

These provide online access (no downloads) to many books in print for a monthly fee.

• Safari Mostly programming books from O'reilly and other publisheres. $20 or $40 per month.
• Questia provides access to scholarly books and journals from 300 publishers. About 67000 books. Also has newspaaper and magazine articles and reference books. For personal or academic use, not commercial. $20/month or $100/year.
• Integrated publishing's Archive Service $9.95/month 10 downloads/day. 58000 files, technical manuals, pamphlets, etc., largely military manuals. Also sells CD-roms. Can also browse the directory and look for free sources. Most of the good stuff is already here.
• MilDocs.com $20/year, search and download of 22524 ETMs (electronic technical manuals). Sells 8 DVD collection (40GB)for $900.

Previews

There are some sites that allow limited previewing and searching inside large numbers of commercial books.

Amazon

Google Book Search

Other media

• Youtube has a lot of howto videos, videos of CNC machines at work, etc.
• Instructables has lots of online projects.

Notes on copyright

Copyright law is murky and the government of the people, by the corporations, for the corporations has made some changes that are in violation of the public interest by perputually renewing copyrights. In the US, books published before 1923 are public domain. Books published before 1964 may be in the public domain if not renewed. Books published before 1989 that did not have a (proper) copyright notice "Copyright 9999 by xxxx xxxx; All Rights Reserved" are also probably public domain. Note, however, that these apply to books originally published in the US; if it was originally published in another country, other rules may apply. US Government publications are in the public domain.

Project Gutenberg Copyright FAQ has more info on when books enter the public domain. href="http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Gutenberg:Copyright_FAQ Search renewal recordsat Rutgers, at stanford

Copyright laws vary in other countries.

Tips on scanning books

• Some people just don't get it. Putting a copyleft license on a scanned book is a bad idea. The point of having copyrights expire was so they would be available to anyone for any purpose, especially commercial use (there already being loopholes, public libraries, etc. for personal use). Imposing copyright restrictions on your scanned version defeats this purpose. There are lots of legitimate commercial applications. Allowing commercial use in no way prevents free availability and it increases the number of people who can benefit. Commercial use restrictions also interfere with using it in a permissively licensed document or program.
• When converting from scanned image files to postscript files, some programs produce much larger files. For example, sam2p produces files that are 3% of the size of files produced by ImageMagick. By default images in postscript files are uncompressed.
• The program called unpaper could be handy.
• Do not "blow chunks". When you divide a file into lots of smaller pieces, it becomes much harder to search, skim, etc. You can do that in addition to providing a monolithic file but don't do it instead.
• Some programs, such as the software that comes with hp scanners, produces searchable PDFs by removing the original image after OCRing. That makes the file size smaller and the text crisper, but when the ocr screws up, you have a problem.
• you might want to look at djvulibre
• Engauge-digitizer, g3data, DigitizeIt, and spectrascan are used to digitize data in scanned images of plots
• img2pdf "converts a list of images to a single multi-page PDF document". Looks like it does not know how to preserve aspect ratio. tumble is another program.
• Refocus is a plugin for gimp
• Scanning something larger than your scanner? hugin converts multiple images into a single image. Designed for panoramas but I believe it also works on flat images. grunch is a tool that converts partial scans into a larger image.
• tic98 is a ""lossless image compressor for scanned documents"
• After looking at a lot of scanned books, I think a program which adjusts the brightness over the page would be useful. Compute an image histogram for each square inch of page to determine the white and black values and interpolate between.
• Some people unbind books before scanning, which gives nice flat images but damages the book.
• Instead of putting a book on the scanner, you may want to consider removing the cover from the scanner, flipping it upside down, and placing it on top of the book.
• When scanning a book right side up (using a digital camera or putting the scanner on top of the book), you may want to use a labjack to compensate for the different height of the two sides. If you don't have one, you can use a ream of paper and remove sheets as needed.
• A V cradle can be used instead of having the book lie flat; this is easier on the spine and the pages are less curled.
• For high volume scanning, there are special book scanning devices out there including planetary scanners, robotic page turning scanners, flatbed scanners designed to accomodate books hanging over edge, etc.
• book scanning robot made from legos.
• scan books to files like "page0001.jpg" not "page1.jpg", one sorts nicely, one doesn't.
• gscan2pdf is a GUI front end. Uses scanimage, unpaper, djvulibre, gocr, tesseract, imagemagick, etc.
• Comparison of free OCR pages and scanning at different resolutions. 400dpi -600dpi works best.
• recaptcha is a distributed system for getting humans to help OCR software one word at a time. CAPTCHAs are used to differentiate between humans and spam bots, and people solve 60 million of them a day. They are currently helping digitize internet archive books. They also have a Mailhide program to hide your email address. You can also go to the site and solve words.

Programs mentioned in this section run under free operating systems such as Linux. They may or may not run on proprietary operating systems.

Other Links

• OCLC
• WorldCat is a combined library catalog for over 50000 libraries. Unfortunately, the search by publication year is broken. If you search for Machinery's handbook years 1900-1923, it returns the 1854 edition (copyright 1914-1954).
• Open Library project
• Tellico a collection manager for books, videos, music, etc. , supports Z39.50 and can import data from amazon, IMDb, z39.50 library catalogs (including library of congress), etc.
• Greenstone "is a suite of software for building and distributing digital library collections" on the internet or CD-ROM. Crossplatfrom, Linux, MacOS X, windoze. Z39.50 support.
• ISBN database