Digital Books: Home

How Do I Use Digital  Books and Digital Textbooks?

A digital book (or digital textbook) is different from an ebook. 

A digital book is a book that the library scanned and made available in the catalog. 

An ebook is a book the library licensed from a third-party provider such as EBSCO or ProQuest.

Accessing Digital Books

If you find a digital book that you want to access, you will need to sign in before you can receive access. 

When you've signed in, the phrase Digital Version(s) will be a link, which you can click to open the textbook. 

You will also see the limitations on using the book. In some cases the book can only be viewed by a few people, or even just one person, at a time. If the textbook is already being used by its maximum number of viewers, you will see a link inviting you to add yourself to the waitlist. Click that link, then confirm on the next page.

When the book becomes available, you will receive an email notification. From the moment you receive the email, you will have 30 minutes to start viewing the resource; after that passes, if you haven't viewed the resource, it becomes available to the next person in the waitlist.

Using Digital Books

Please be aware of the following features:

• Zooming in and out. Look for plus (+) and minus (-) signs to adjust the text, to make it more readable.
• Contents pane. This area to the left will help you navigate through parts of the book (usually chapters).
• Full-screen. You might be better able to read the text if you open it in full-screen view.
• Time remaining. An hourglass icon will show you how much time is left in your session, after which the book access will end. If there is nobody waiting for the book at that point, you will be able to open it again.
• Return early. If you are done using your book, please click Return Early! Doing so will allow anyone waiting for their turn to get to access to the book more quickly.

Note that you will not be able to download the source PDF files to your computer, but you should be able to copy/paste short passages.

If you notice problems with your digital book, please use the Report a problem link, or, if you need immediate help, use the live chat service.

Why the Limitations?

As noted above, there are limits on how many people can view digital books simultaneously, and the library doesn't provide PDF copies that you could save to your computer. These limitations are required by copyright law. We do not have a license to distribute online copies of the book, so we are treating each use of the digital book as a digital loan, similar to how we loan out books in print format from our circulation desk. In fact, for each student who is able to view a digital book simultaneously, there is a legally obtained physical copy sitting on a shelf in the library. This model of library access is called controlled digital lending.

It would be much easier if we could purchase licenses for books, and especially textbooks, through vendors such as EBSCO or ProQuest, from whom we purchase most of our ebooks. But many of the most common publishers of academic textbooks prefer not to allow libraries to purchase ebook licenses.