E-books
E-books
What are E-books?
E-books are electronic versions of printed books. E-books can be viewed online from any PC connected to the Internet, or in some cases, downloaded to a PC or portable device. You can browse E-books for quick research and reference or read them at your leisure.
Why use E-books?
E-books are not borrowed in the same way as print books, they are accessible on-line 24/7, 365 days of the year. There's no need to hunt around in the Library for books or to wait until other students return them. Also E-books do not count against your borrowing quota and of course there are no fines!
The Library subscribes to two E-book platforms called MyiLibrary and dawsonera. You can print, copy and paste extracts from E-books for your own use, as well as include excerpts in coursework, essays, presentations and dissertations, according to the terms and conditions of use specified by the E-book provider. You may not distribute extracts to someone else by electronic means.
How to use E-books?
For more information on how to log on and use our e-book collections try our on-line guide.
| E-book platform | Description | How much can I download? |
|---|---|---|
| dawsonera | There are many thousands of E-books in the dawsonera catalogue, produced by academic publishers around the world. Marjon Library has purchased a selection of these to create a tailored collection of E-books for you to read. Titles from the collection can be accessed via links from the Library catalogue, or directly via the dawsonera Reader Portal. | In line with the "fair dealing" rules of copyright protection a reader may print between 5% and 20% of the book and copy between 5% and 10% of the text. These allowances are set by the publishers. |
| MyiLibrary | MyiLibrary is an electronic platform that offers library users access to some of the most topical and current e-books available today. Marjon Library has a collection of titles available via the MyiLibrary platform, and each title can be accessed via a link from the Library catalogue, or directly via the MyiLibrary platform. | Readers may copy and paste or print chapters, sections or pages within the copyright restrictions of the title. |
E-books freely available on the web:
As well the E-book providers mentioned above there are a number of websites that provide access to freely available E-books:
- Bartleby.com Literary classics including the King James Bible, Shakespeare, fiction and nonfiction.
- Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB) - The DOAB is a service aims to increase the discoverability of Open Access books. Academic publishers are invited to provide the necessary information of their Open Access books to DOAB. The directory is open to all publishers who publish academic, peer reviewed books in Open Access, provided that these publications are in Open Access and meet academic standards.
- Google Books - millions of eBooks available to view in 'Full View' (full text of book available) and 'Limited Preview' (only a limited number of pages from the book are available to view). Those books with limited preview are still in copyright, and their pages displayed with the permission of publishers and authors.
- Gutenberg-e - a collaboration between Columbia University Press and the American Historical Association, committed to promoting the electronic publication of scholarly writing in the Humanities.
- Internet Archive - millions of E-books available to view in full text. The ‘Texts’ collection of the Internet Archive includes millions of digitized books from various libraries around the world as well as many special collections. As well as eBooks Internet Archive offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitised materials, including websites, music, moving images, and books.
- Internet Classics Archive 441 works of classical literature by 59 different authors. Mainly Greco-Roman (some Chinese and Persian), all in English translation.
- National Academies Press - The National Academies Press (NAP) of the United States publishes books in a wide range of topics in science, engineering, and health. The NAP website has thousands of books that you can be downloaded free in PDF format. See the website's frequently asked questions guide to find out how books can be downloaded for free by the chapter or the entire book.
- OAPEN (Open Access Publishing in European Networks) is a collaborative initiative to develop and implement an open access publication model for academic books in the Humanities and Social Sciences, which aims to improve the visibility and usability of high quality academic research by aggregating peer reviewed open access publications from across Europe.
- The Online Books Page Listing over 35,000 free books on the Web including a few special exhibit listings including A Celebration of Women Writers and Prize Winning Books Online. Updated regularly.
- Perseus Digital Library Project Includes: Primary and secondary sources for the study of ancient Greece and Rome; Art & Archaeology Artifact Browser; Primary and secondary sources in early modern English literature.
- Prize-winning books online Read online the complete text of books that have won major literary prizes, like the Newbery Award, the Nobel Prize, and the Pulitzer Prize.
- Project Euclid - Developed by the Cornell University Library Project Euclid is jointly managed by Cornell and the Duke University Press and provides free access to journals, conference proceedings and monographs in the field of theoretical and applied mathematics and statistics.
- Project Gutenberg – over 100,000 free eBooks available to download and read. Project Gutenberg aims to digitise and archive books by freely providing them in standard electronic formats. The collection is made up of books whose copyrights have expired or whose authors have permitted free redistribution.