Research Guides: eBook Collections: eBook Facts

Why is there not an eBook for every book?

Many new books are not made available as ebooks and when they are, they are often available only as Kindle books and other very restrictive formats.
Publishers make decisions about how they publish to maximize their sales and profit, but it's not clear how to do that. They might like to sell a copy to every single person, although libraries are reliable buyers.
Publishers also have their own unique histories and cultures.
The result is a wide variety of practices and openness to the library market.
Sometimes, publishers change their assessment of what will help them most and make an ebook more or less available.
Sometimes an ebook is available at a reasonable price with reasonable restrictions and we can buy it. Other times it's not.
When it is, the library still has to decide. Does our community need this book? As an ebook?

eBook Central This link opens in a new window
Scholarly ebooks on all subjects, with over 250,000 titles available.
eBook Collection (EBSCO) This link opens in a new window
Includes over 140,000 titles in a wide variety of subjects, including literature, technology, career and self help, how-to books, and much more.

Oxford Scholarship Online This link opens in a new window
Offers access to about 18,000 Oxford ebooks in a wide range of subject areas.
Wiley Online Library Books This link opens in a new window
Featuring over 20,000 scholarly and professional books, handbooks, dictionaries, companions, and landmark book series.

EBSCO -- YES for most (but we do select single user books also).

ProQuest ebrary -- YES for most (but we do select single user books also).

Oxford -- YES

Safari -- YES

NO except for

YES for most EBSCO ebooks and ProQuest ebrary ebooks. You have to set up an account and check the book out.

Download Adobe Digital Editions and set up AdobeID account. For a better experience, get app for iPad, iPhone, and Android devices.

YES for all except Safari ebooks. There are some exceptions for ProQuest and EBSCO also.

NO for Safari. NO for some (not too many) ProQuest and EBSCO ebooks.

You may be able to download other page ranges for ProQuest ebrary and EBSCO. The maximum is usually about 60 pages.

ProQuest ebooks -- Create a PDF using this button along the top strip.

EBSCO -- Usually you can create and save a PDF using this button along the top. (E-mail Pages works too.)

EBSCO and ProQuest ebrary should not make you log in to download a chapter or chunk.

Most ebooks are reasonably easy to read online.