LIBRARY
Electronic books (E-books) for History students
The Library has a wide range of electronic books (e-books) for History. You can read the whole of an
e-book on your computer and usually print a very small number of pages or download the entire book for
a limited time. The majority of the library’s e-books are accessible from the Library Catalogue
Some history titles will be available in both print format and as an e-book. There are many titles which
are only available in print format, physically in the library.
How do I find an e-book?
 Go the Library Catalogue (from the Library home page) and type in the author or title of the book
you are looking for. You can aIso browse what’s available by searching for your topic, eg
“witchcraft”, “french revolution”
 The Catalogue will display the results that match your search. If a book is available electronically,
it will say eBook below the book title
 If you get a long list of results, you can click ‘Electronic Books Catalogue’ on the left side of the
screen, below ‘Collection’ and your results will display e-books only.
How do I use an e-book?
 Once you have found an e-book, click on the book title. At the next screen, select the ‘On and off
campus access’ link. You will be taken to the electronic book
 You can click the “Read online” book option or browse the table of contents or search within the
book. You can also download the book for a maximum of 3 days for reading offline or on another
device
Browsing for e-books
 When you do a topic search on the Library Catalogue, you can check if any of the books in your
results list are available electronically by looking at the list of options on the left of the results
screen. Below ‘Collection’ there will be a link to any e-books which match your search query
(‘Electronic Books Catalogue’)
 You can also browse the collections of the library’s ‘E-book suppliers’. From the library home
page at http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/ select ‘E-books’ below (‘Use E-resources’). You can link
to Dawsonera and MyiLibrary from these pages and browse their collections.
 The library also subscribes to a large number of historical e-books which are available via e-book
collections.
WWW.BROOKES.AC.UK/LIBRARY
Historic e-book collections
 The library provides access to an historic e-book collection called JISC Historic Books which
enable you to read hundreds of historic books from 1475 to the nineteenth century. The individual
books from the collections are not listed on the Library Catalogue
 Historical Texts consists of the following collections: Early English Books Online (EEBO) 14731700; Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) and Nineteenth Centruy Books from the
British Library collection. You can search the collections individually or in combination
 You can access Historical Texts from the History Databases page
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/hist/subdbhist.html
 Many of the items are full text so you can read the entire book. You can also download individual
pages or a range of pages
Further help
Face to face help
 You can contact your Subject Librarian, Katie Hambrook, for further help with using e-books or
any other library related query – in person in the library, telephone (01865) 483146, email
khambrook@brookes.ac.uk
 Ask at the Library Enquiry Desk or contact our enquiry service at
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/library/ask.html
Sept 2014