Student guide to using library resources: E-book Guide

We source books for our collection from over 35 international publishers. Publishers decide which of their books can be provided to libraries in print or electronically (or both!), and this often differs from what is available to individuals. Additionally, publishers determine which e-book platform will host a particular title. You'll therefore come across various e-book platforms in our collection. The main ones are:

1. Ebook Central
2. EBSCO
3. VLEbooks

We also have e-books that are hosted by BibliU, Cambridge University Press, JSTOR, Oxford University Press, SAGE, Springer, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley, amongst others. Open Access (OA) platforms are also becoming more common, and these include DOAB Directory of Open Access Books and OAPEN Open. Sometimes only a chapter of a book will be OA rather than the complete book.

Each platform has its own quirks, and it's worth taking a little time to familiarise yourself with these when you start using e-books. This will help to enhance your learning experience, and make studying more comfortable and efficient! 

Should you experience an issue with accessing an e-book we recommend taking the following steps:

• In the first instance, check the landing page of the e-book that you are trying to access to establish whether it is a limited or unlimited user licence. If it is a limited user licence, it is likely that all available licences are already in use. We therefore advise that you try again a little later; many of our platforms allow you to set a notification to inform you when a licence becomes available. This is especially important to be aware of at peak times.
• Check the help pages of the e-book platform - here are the links to our main suppliers (for others, please navigate to the 'FAQs' or 'Support' section of the respective platform):
  • Ebook Central 
  • EBSCO
  • VLEbooks
• Check that you have pop ups enabled for VLEbooks and Adobe Digital Editions installed on your device for downloading.
• Ensure that you are accessing the e-book via the library catalogue or your module's reading list, and that you are signed in with your University of Bath credentials via Single Sign On (SSO).
• Try clearing the cache / browser history of your device, and / or restarting it. You can also try changing your browser. This will often help to remove any issues that may be coming into play in the background!
• If, following the above checks, you are still encountering access issues, please let us know via the 'report a problem with accessing this resource' option in the catalogue listing (SSO required). We will then investigate and work on resolving any issues before sending you an update via email.

E-books are loanable for up to 24 hours They can be read in two different ways, namely:

• Online - we recommend reading online when you can, since the e-book will automatically return itself at the end of 24 hours or after a period of inactivity. This means that it will become available for others more rapidly. It's worth noting that you will need to enable pop ups to read VLEbooks online (this is especially important on Apple devices which automatically block them).
• Via download - some e-books can be downloaded for a few hours or up to one day, after which they will automatically be returned. You will need to have Adobe Digital Editions installed on your device in order to download many of our e-books. It is worth being aware that some e-books will not have a download option.

Please take note that copyright restrictions limit the saving or printing of a book to either one chapter or 10% of its contents, whichever is the greater. In some cases, publishers may set their own limits in this area. For more information about copyright please see this page of our website.

If you would like access to books, journals, articles or other materials that we do not hold in our collection, you can request these via our Inter-library loans service. You can also use our Bath Copies service to request a digitised version of a book chapter or other print-based resource.

E-book licence types can be grouped as follows:

• Limited User (one or three, i.e. concurrent usage is restricted to the number of licences we hold)
• Unlimited Access (no restrictions to number of users)
• Subscription (i.e. e-textbooks. Access to these e-books is for a limited period of time).

We endeavour to source unlimited access e-books whenever possible; however, these are not always available to us because publishers determine licence options. Therefore, you will find that we may have a combination of the above licence options in stock for titles in our collection.

One of the great things about e-books is the potential to customise settings to best support your individual needs. Platforms have options to adjust font / zoom, to utilise Read Aloud software, and to select different background shades and contrast levels. Each platform will have its own accessibility options and guidance, and it's worth exploring the support pages of each as you use them.

Below are links to the accessibility guidance for our three main providers:

• Ebook Central
• EBSCO
• VLEbooks

You can find accessibility guidance for our other e-book platforms on their websites.

For more support with your accessibility needs during your studies, please see the Library's guide for students and staff with disabilities. We also encourage you to contact your Academic Advisor and / or the University of Bath Disability Service.