Digital Access - Accessing eBooks

There are several common issues that cause confusion when accessing ebooks:

• Several full text options may be available.
• Many publishers have limitations on downloading or printing.
• Some publishers include purchase options that may you think that we don't already have the book, when in fact we do.
• Some ebook platforms resemble article databases and you may be in a database rather than an ebook platform, and receive a message that the book is not available.
• Some ebook platforms (and other eresources) allow you to create a personal account, which provide several benefits to you, but it looks like you must create one (when in fact you don't).

Some ebooks are available in full text from several publishers and in several packages. What and how much you are allowed to download or print (called "digital rights management", or DRM) can very greatly between publishers. If you cannot download or print what you need, it is worthwhile checking the other publishers. 

You can see below that....

• There are unlimited copies available, which means that there are unlimited concurrent users of the book;
• You can download, print, email, or save up to 100 pages, and
• You can download the entire book, but you need third party software (Adobe Digital Editions in this case) to do it.

However, regardless of any limitations you might see, you always have the entire book available to read online. DRM only concerns other uses of the book.

Below the picture of the book's cover there is a button that says, Buy Now in Print. Many users of ebooks are put off by this message, which gives the impression that the Library does not own this book when, in fact, we do. This button is only a sales pitch and you can ignore it. Proceed to use the book.

Some library resources have a feature that allows you to create a personal account through which you can do things like save searches, collect materials for projects, create alerts for material that matches criteria that you provide, or in some learning platforms, save your progress in learning your material.

However, these prompts to "Sign In" make it look like you must sign in, when in fact you don't. If we own the resource, then you will not be asked to sign in again once you are authenticated in our system.

Ebook platforms created by some vendors closely resemble databases published by the same vendor, and you can get a message that the book you're looking for isn't available when, in fact, it is available but you are in a vendor's database rather than their ebook platform.

In this picture, you can see Searching: Academic Search Premier, which is a database of mostly articles. Here you will find reviews of the Kaplan and Sadock book, but not the actual book.

In this picture, you can see the Access now (eBook) and Download buttons, which means you are viewing a book in EBSCO's eBook platform