Monday, 3 September 2012

Ebooks - your essential guide

So ebooks, we all know what they are but do you know how to make the most of them? How to annotate online, when to download and how much you can print? The Library buys hundreds of ebooks each year and you can find them all via our Library catalogue StarPlus but they don’t all come from the same supplier. As a result there are lots of different rules governing how you can use them. Here is a quick guide to our main supplies and some top tips on how to make the most of your e reading experience... 


Dawsonera:


This is our main supplier. If there’s an ebook you want and dawsonera has it we’ll be buying it from them. Dawsonera allows you two options with ebooks. You can either ‘read online’ or you can download the book onto a memory stick or your computer drive where it will last as a pdf format for 24 hours. This is great if you know you’ve only got a short internet connection. 

If you’re reading the ebook online you can also annotate the text, just click on the yellow notes tab. The reader portal recognises who you are each time you log in and your notes will be saved for your next session. 

If you want a hard copy of the text Dawsonera allows you to print up to 5% of any ebook per user. 


MyiLibrary:


You can generally download or print 10 pages of a MyiLibrary ebook, although this may differ slightly as the publisher sets the limits.

The MyiLibrary software works best if you use the chapter navigation on the left-hand side to navigate the book.


NetLibrary:


You cannot download from NetLibrary ebooks, but you can print a percentage of the book. This percentage is again set by the publishers so will vary book to book, if you click on the print button within a book it will tell you how many pages you're allowed for that book.

If you're using a Mac to view NetLibrary ebooks, you will need to install a PDF Browser plug-in which can be found in the help section.


Taylor and Francis archive:


With these ebooks, you can save or print one chapter, or 5% of the book, whichever is greater.

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