Ebooks 

Find a specific ebook

If you want to find a specific eBook you know we have access to, you can search for it using the main FindIt@Bham homepage. Set the Search Filter to eJournals & eBooks Only (it is set to Everything by default), type the title and author of the eBook in the Search bar, and press Return. Select the record for the eBook in the results list and click the link under View It to access it, ensuring that you have noted any additional access requirements under Public Notes.

Browse our available ebooks

If you want to browse our available eBooks, perform keyword searches on FindIt@Bham with the Search Filter set to eJournals & eBooks Only to locate eBooks on particular subjects and themes. For further guidance on using FindIt@Bham to search for eResources, please consult our FindIt@Bham LibGuide.

Ebooks on resource lists 

In addition, eBooks that are required reading for a module will be available from the resource list for that module. Go to ResourceLists@Bham, sign in with your University email and password, and search by module title, module code, or module lead to find the resource list associated with your module. Once on the resource list, find the eBooks and click the View Online button to access them.

Ebook platforms

You can also search our eBooks on the eBook platforms we have access to, which are set up as databases on FindIt@Bham. If you want to find a specific eBook platform you know we have access to, you can search for it using the main FindIt@Bham homepage. Set the Search Filter to Online Items (it is set to Everything by default), type the name of the eBook platform in the Search bar, and press Return. Select the record for the eBook platform in the results list and click the link under View It to access it, ensuring that you have noted any additional access requirements under Public Notes. You will then be able to use the eBook platform to browse or search for the eBooks we have access to on that particular eBook platform.

Alternatively, you can browse or search for our available eBook platforms on the Database Search tab of FindIt@Bham. 

Read our ebooks FAQs

Ebook collections

We have access to ebooks from key providers, supplying a wide collection of ebooks.

  • Ebook Central A growing collection of more than 150,000 owned and subscribed titles over a wide range of subjects. An increasing number of titles are available DRM-free with unlimited chapter downloads.
  • ACLS Humanities Collection Contains over 5000 full-text humanities titles and represents over 250 academic and learned societies.  Titles are continuously added to the collection.
  • Cambridge Core All of our Cambridge University Press content in one place. Including literature, music and philosophy collections, Shakespeare Survey and Cambridge Histories Online.
  • Early English Books Online (EEBO)
  • Early European Books
  • Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) Original eighteenth-century books etc in digitized form.
  • Elsevier - Science Direct A wide range of scientific, technical, and medical research titles. Clinical Key - a collection of key medical education textbooks.
  • HeinOnline Law ebooks
  • Knovel Covering a range of engineering subjects.
  • Oxford Dictionaries Searchable comprehensive bilingual dictionaries in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Includes a range of study aids and grammar notes.
  • Oxford Medicine Online A series of pocket handbooks for a broad medical readership, from students, junior doctors, and specialist trainees, to nurses, dentists, paramedics, and allied health professionals.
  • Oxford Scholarship Online Key titles in Political Science and History
  • VLeBooks
  • World Scientific

Ebooks with concurrent user limits 

You may have noticed that eBooks have concurrent user limits stipulating a maximum number of users at any one time. Usually, our eBooks allow one or three users to access them concurrently. Because we are a lending library, we have to purchase eBooks according to a lending model and eBooks purchased in this way come with an institutional licence (Kindle eBooks and other eBook formats for individual download are not suitable for institutional purposes and cannot be made accessible to every academic and student in the University). An institutional licence sets maximum concurrent user limits and is implemented by the supplier. 

In our experience, the level of eBook access we have is enough to accommodate our users and it is rarely the case that all users in the University, or even all users on a particular module, will be accessing the same eBook at the same time. Having said that, the Library actively monitors turnaways (the number of times a user is unable to access an eBook because the maximum concurrent user limit has already been reached) as a matter of course. If an eBook has five turnaways in a twenty-four-hour period, we will automatically purchase another user licence. Purchasing this additional licence is usually sufficient to ease the pressure on demand and enable our users to access the eBook at the point of need.

 

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