Using eBook Collection Effectively
- eBook Collection This link opens in a new windowIncludes access to over 200,000 full-text eBooks, many by academic and university presses published in the past ten years. This collection assembled by California Community Librarians with our programs course offerings in mind. Good for reliable background information on "big picture" topics as well as source for analysis on fairy tales and folklore archetypes.
1. Type in search term(s) and press the Search button.
2. Read through the title and examine the subjects listed for a book to help determine whether it might be a useful source of information for the topic searched.
Tip: The Subjects area can also be a good place to look for terms that relate to the topic searched. Another helpful area is the Most Relevant Pages From This eBook. Clicking on this link will display snippets of some of the pages in the ebooks with the searched terms. It can be a good tool to see whether the information in the eBook is relevant to your specific topic.
3. To view an ebook, click on the eBook Full Text link and the book will open up with a Table of Contents listed on the left-hand side.
4 .The sections of the Table of Contents are hot: click on a chapter or part and to be taken to the beginning of it. Some of the sections have plus signs (+) next to them; click on the plus sign to view smaller sections under a given chapter or part. The Table of Contents is a valuable tool for scanning a book so you can focus your time on the chapters and sections that are most likely to be relevant for your research.
5 .Another usful tool for scanning for relevant information is the Search this eBook tool accessible via the magnifying glass icon on the right side of the full-text page. Type in a word or phrase, and page(s) containing those term(s) will appear in the upper portion of the web page.
6. To move between pages of a book, use the navigation buttons at the bottom of the webpage. There are icons for printing, downloading, emailing and citing in the Tools area to the right. Please note that this is our one database that does limit downloading (printing, emailing, saving) to 60 pages per session.
Why Use Books?
Books are a good place to get started when doing research because they are a very good source for background and historical information: the who, what, where, when and why on a topic. Books are can also help you figure out how to narrow your topic by introducing you to some of the smaller issues within the topic.