What are eBooks?
Electronic/digital copy of a printed book OR an item which is ‘born digital’, i.e. it was produced only as an electronic item.
Ebook Library or ProQuest
This is an online (web-based) system of e-books. JKTL has purchased access to some of the 1000’s of items available from ProQuest. These items can be accessed by registered library borrowers via the library’s catalogue Anglicat.
Finding an eBook
Make sure you’ve switched the search to ‘Discovery’ on Anglicat. This means your search will be looking at all the resources held by JKTL, rather than just the physical books and journals on the shelf. You can search for an ebook either by title/author search, or by entering the term ‘ebook’. This term will find items from ProQuest and other online sources.
Having found an eBook
Once you have found the item you want to use:
- Click on the title.
- Click on the URL link to the right of the record. (This will read ‘View in EDS’ or similar)
- You will then be asked for your username and password (which is included with your library card)
- Once your username and password have been verified, the item will be displayed on screen.
Reading Online
- You can read through the contents page for unlimited time.
- To read online – click on the button that says ‘read online’.
- You can browse the item for 10 minutes before you will be prompted to loan the item.
- If you want to print or copy from the item you will also be prompted to loan the item (if you haven’t already created a loan).
- The loan period online is for 24 hours. The title will remain available to you online (via the catalogue and once you have entered your ID etc.) during this 24 hour period.
Downloading or reading offline
If you want to download the item to read later or read from another device, you can ‘download’ the item by clicking on the button ‘download’. You will be asked to create a loan – the loan length is either 4 or 7 days. To read the item you need Adobe Digital Editions.
Once you have downloaded the ebook you can transfer the ebook to up to two authenticated devices (e.g. iPhone, iPod, iPad, Blackberry, Android phone etc) within the allotted time of the loan. This allow the ebook to be transferred between your computer another device.
Printing or Copying
- You can print up to 20% of the pages in any one book.
- You can copy and paste up to 5% of the pages in any one book.
ProQuest tracks how many pages you copy or print during the loan. You can check your print allowance by using the menu options on the left hand side of the screen.
Click on the ‘details’ button. This tells you if you have the item on loan, and how many pages you can copy and print.
Note that your printing allowance reduces by half on a second ‘download’ of an item and reduces to zero on subsequent downloads.
Free eBooks on the Internet
This project which started in 1971 stores a huge range of copyright-free books in digital form, and has been growing ever since. It has an (experimental) full-text search option.
A collection maintained by the University of Auckland Library.
Search and preview millions of books from libraries and publishers worldwide using Google Book Search.
A free online archive of New Zealand and Pacific Islands texts and heritage materials, which offers an ever expanding, fully searchable, set of images and full-text books, manuscripts and journals. Hosted by Victoria University of Wellington.
Project Canterbury is a free online archive of out-of-print Anglican texts and related modern documents.
Click here for a direct link to the Oceania section of the Project Canterbury site.
Click here for a direct link to the New Zealand section of the Project Canterbury site.
Free eBooks: the Ultimate Guide has a great list of websites and suggestions if you are interested in other eBooks, such as classics contemporary and specialty books.