Library E-Struction
Week Six, DATE
netLibrary - Electronic Books
Please use these instructions as a step by step tutorial to be read as you practice with the resource.
Description: Adjust loan periods, collection size, etc. to fit your library
netLibrary contains a collection of electronic books purchased by the YOUR LIBRARY. The collection will eventually contain over 10,000 books with a strong emphasis on the humanities, literature, business and technology. Books from the netLibrary collection can be "checked out" for two hours. You can either read them while maintaining your connection to the Internet, or you can download them and read them offline using the netLibrary e-book Reader.
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Access: Adjust off campus access email addresses, etc. to fit your library
netLibrary can be accessed at http://www.netlibrary.com
To borrow books from the netLibrary collection you must register for an account. You must use a computer on the campus network to initially register for an account. This means that you can use a UNO PPP account, or you can come to campus and use a computer either in the Library or in one of the UCC computer labs. If you are a distance learner, you can contact me at dlenares@uno.edu and I will set up an account for you. Once you have set up an account you can use the netLibrary collection from any computer connected to the Internet.
To register for an account go to http://www.netlibrary.com/signup.asp Remember you must be on campus or using a UNO PPP account to register.
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SEARCHING:
Currently you cannot browse the netLibrary collection, but you can search the collection. Search the collection at http://www.netlibrary.com
You can search for a book by title, author, or publisher. You can use keyword to search in the following fields: author, title, subtitle, Library of Congress subject headings, publisher and ISBN.
There is also a quick search box located at the top of the screen. This search box allows you to search for books by title, author, Library of Congress subject headings, keywords (in the fields described above) and in the text of the book. Quick search will automatically expand any words you are searching to include variants of the word. For example if you search "history" in the quick search box it will search history, historic, historical, etc. To search for a phrase that includes punctuation or a number (20th Century or Ph.D.) enclose your search terms in quotation marks " ".
FULL TEXT SEARCHING:
You can also search the full text of the e-books. Full text search allows you to search every word of every book in the collection.
When searching through the full text of the collection, you may want to refine your search terms to cut down on too many mis-hits.
To Refine your search:
The words: AND, OR, NOT and NEAR can be used as connectors (also called Boolean operators).
Use double quotes " " around phrases. For example "civil war"
Use * for truncation. For example, a search for loc* includes the words location, local, and locus.
Use ** to locate all forms of a word. For example, a search for drive** includes the words drives, drove, driving, and driven.
Parenthesis can be used to combine terms. For example ("civil war" and "United States") NOT Mexic*
I have to admit, however, that netLibrary seems to be still developing its search capacity. Although the searches should work using these rules, I have experienced lots of problems with advanced searches. Hopefully netLibrary will improve the search functions soon, but until that time it might be best to keep your searches simple.
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CHECKING BOOKS OUT:
If you would like to read an e-book, click on the Check Out icon to the right of the title on the results list. There are two options for checking a book out. You can read the book while continuing to stay online, or download the book and read it offline with an e-book reader. The e-book reader offers special features such as highlighting, adding margin notes, etc. The e-book reader is not available for the Macintosh operating system.
To read the book online (while still connected to your ISP), click on the Reading Options: "Online" button. The book will open in your browser.
To read the book offline, click on the Reading Options: "Download" button. You will then have to download the e-book Reader by clicking on the link to "Download Version 2.10 Now." This download will take a little or a lot of time, depending on the speed of your connection. When downloading is complete, install the e-book reader. You can then download an e-book title to read offline. Once downloaded, the title should automatically open in the e-book reader.
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Adjust to suit your estruction program
Good luck using netLibrary. Let me know what you think of the resource, and if you have problems using it. It is a new product, and the Library's first purchase of electronic books. We are interested to see what students and faculty think of this product.
As always, if you have questions about this database feel free to email or call me directly, or respond to the list if you feel your question would be helpful to other participants.
This will be the last database covered in the orientation. Next week I will send a review and a brief survey to help evaluate the program. Your input will be very helpful in improving this orientation for future participants.
Thank you for participating.