DiMenna-Nyselius Library provides access to over 900,000 ebooks and counting. Most of these ebooks are provided by four major vendors, so using them will differ depending on who created the ebook.
If you have already found an ebook and are looking at this guide for information on how to use it, look at the top of the ebook page for a logo, which will tell you which platform you are currently on. If your ebook doesn't look like any of these, use the chat box on the left side of this page to ask a Librarian for help
You can read an eBook in many different ways, but not all options will be available for all books.
The front page of a book will look different depending on which platform is hosting the eBook you're reading. Below are some examples (it will cycle through the examples automatically, but you can swipe through using the arrows on either side of the image).
This is an example of how an eBook's front page looks on the ProQuest platform.
An eBook hosted on EBSCOhost doesn't so much have a front page as just a sidebar like this.
This shows what it looks like to download part of an EBSCO eBook. Note the example of limitations being put on how many pages you can download.
If your eBook is hosted on Springer, you can either download chapters or view them online.
If your eBook host is JSTOR, the front page will look like this, with a Table of Contents below and the option to read chapters online or download them.
One of the great things about using eBooks is that you can easily search within them instead of having to use the index like in a traditional book. The method for searching within an eBook varies depending which platform it's on, but usually the basic method goes like this:
Again, the method of searching within an eBook will vary depending on where the book is hosted. Here are some examples (it will cycle through the examples automatically, but you can swipe through using the arrows on either side of the image):
The ProQuest platform places a search box at the top of the Table of Contents where you can search for key words or phrases within the book.
When you've done your search, you can see how many times that term occurred in a chapter and click the arrow next to the chapter's title to see the individual pages it occurs on.
To search for specific keywords within the full-text of an EBSCOhost eBook, click "Search within" near the top-left of the page.
A list of each page where the search term occurs will appear.
An eBook hosted by Springer will have the search box on the bottom right corner of the book's front page.
It will then display the results of your search by page.
Unfortunately, there isn't really an easy way to search within a JSTOR eBook. You'll need to pick which chapter seems promising, click the "download PDF" button in the top right of the page, and then on your keyboard press "ctrl-F" ("command-F" if you're on a Mac) and search for your key terms or phrases in that search box.