FAQ on E-BOOKS
Search the Library through E-books to get a feel for the collections; search via Subject area. Do specific title searches for the core texts you currently use. Link to Guide
If you find texts in the Library's current e-book collections, flag this with us through the form below - copy and paste link or title. We will then check the licences and give you what you need to integrate it into your module. This will also allow us to prepare support materials for your students on getting the best from these materials.
Maybe, but quite possibly not. Academic libraries are usually not able to purchase an e-book like an individual as the publisher's models think this would limit their ability to sell individual licenses. Get in touch with us through the platform and we will assess the feasibility of a multi-user licence.
There are multiple licences that must be considered when providing copyrighted material to students in online platforms, even when only shared within the VLE. A lot of the limitations come from the publisher side who have enormous control over how materials are accessed and prices jump significantly as a library purchaser. Some context on how e-book publishers operate:
Some publishers provide e-books for individual private purchase only because that model is the most effective for them financially. An ebook being available for you to purchase via Amazon, say, does not automatically mean that the library can buy a copy. We will always do our best to try to find an institutional copy to buy, but sometimes there simply will not be one.
Some publishers have not licensed their e-books for sale in the Irish market. In some cases it might be possible to purchase an institutional e-book in, say, North America, but not here (and the reverse is likely to be true too).
Some books are not available on secure platforms so libraries cannot work with them.
Sometimes an e-book is available but its price makes its purchase impractical for us. To have one licence for a book might cost 60e but to have multiples can cost over 1,000.
On a similar note, sometimes a specific title is only available through the purchase of (or subscription to) a much bigger e-book package. Library staff then need to work with academic staff and students to ascertain whether the larger package would be useful and provide value for money, and whether relevant budgets can support the cost.
Once the Library has identified titles needed we check the available licenses for them and the cost. If titles can be purchased we work with the vendors to integrate them into our collecitons to share the link details with academics and make online connected Reading Lists available through Moodle - we have a Key Links tool that can be integrated into your Module for this.
We will always try to find a solution, negotiating with providers and sometimes bringing multiple budgets together to afford a book, but we might have to turn a request down.
There are lots of considerations the Library make when deciding on purchasing of e-books. An overview of some of the reasons it might not be possible to access a title include:
* cost, sometimes an e-book costs many multiples of what physical books cost; library pays for the majority of current e-book collections
* licence type, publishers will not sell license to e-books to libraries the same way as they do to individuals
* individual v package, publishers will often not see the licence to one e-book without buying a whole package
* content alternatives, whether credible alternatives are available as Open Education Resources
Sometimes an e-book which AIT has got access to might not be available to you because it is already in use (you will normally see the message “all available copies currently in use”). Huge numbers of e-books can be used by unlimited numbers of readers at the same time, but some are more restricted and might, for example, have a single-user access model. You will need to wait until the ebook is “free” again before you can access it.