Turchin Business Library
Library Guides
Library Guides
Tulane's libraries have large book collections of broad scope and several million titles, including many unique or rare books dating from an original leaf of the Gutenberg Bible (ca. 1456) to recent first editions. The collections also include more than a million eBooks.
EBook advantages and limitations as course materials. Many individual eBooks titles are licensed for single users only, i.e., for one user at a time. Single-use eBooks can be thought of as roughly similar in terms of access to single copies of physical books that instructors might include on a list of suggested readings for a course and unavailable while another user is reading them. Listing eBooks as required reading for a course may necessitate a multi-use license for the title, especially if there will be a significant number of students enrolled in the course. Multi-user upgrades for individual titles are available, but not from all publishers or for all titles. Some eBook publisher platforms (ScienceDirect or SpringerLink for examples) or large historical eBook databases have licenses that provide multi-user availability for all content; so restrictions vary.
Faculty are advised to contact a business librarian to inquire about multi-user availability for eBooks before listing them.
Locating Ebooks: You can locate eBooks with licensed access via the Tulane campus network using the Books+ feature of the Library Search box or the Classic Catalog on the library home page, and both have options allowing you to limit searches to eBooks as a format. Also, many of the databases available from the library Databases list serve as platforms for new or recent eBooks.
Links to eBooks from the Books+ feature of the Library Search box may be especially useful for course readings lists since they do not require a proxy server prefix to be added to the EBook's Permalink URL. For basic directions on how to find eBooks using this search feature see this Finding eBooks in Library Search guide. Persistent links found directly on the publisher's platform or within a database would need the proxy prefix (see below) inserted into the link provided to students.
Linking from the Books+ feature of the Library Search box on the library home page. Books+ has records with links to EBooks on publisher platforms or in databases. You can link to the record which in turn will link students to the full text. You can also provide a link to a book or document so your students can find the call number or bibliographic information easily.
Copy and paste the Permalink that is displayed into the course document you intend to provide. You do not need to add any proxy information if you use the Permalink from the Books+ feature of the Library Search box on the library home page.
Otherwise, to link directly to an eBook on a licensed publisher platform accessible via the library you will want to add the proxy server URL prefix described earlier in this guide to the article's persistent link on this platform. An example would be creating a useable link directly to an article on the platform of a publisher or within an eBook database.
To do this, locate the persistent link to the eBook on the publisher's platform. In front of the URL add the prefix:
http://libproxy.tulane.edu:2048/login?url=
Include this resulting proxied persistent link with the citation to the eBook in your course document, and this will allow off-campus students to log in to the Tulane network and access the item.
