The Library provides access to over 250,000 e-books. They can be accessed at any time and from wherever you are. The contents of e-books are fully text searchable and you don't need to worry about someone else having borrowed a title just when you need it.
You can now borrow an e-book Reader from the Library and load it with e-Books. Ask at the Service Points at Central, Commerce, Law, Architecture & Design, or Education Libraries.
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How to find and use e-books
You can search for e-books using the Library catalogue, browse particular collections of e-books, or find recommendations for e-books in specific subject areas. You can read all e-books online and download some to read offline as well.
- Library Catalogue
Find e-books by usng the basic search of the Library Catalogue and limit results to "EBooks". The e-books limit can only be applied to Keyword and Title searching.
- Recommended Resources Guides
Find e-books for your subject and your course.
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E-book collections
There are also several distinct collections of e-books in the Library which you can browse through.The Library collection includes numerous individual e-books which are best found through a search of the Library catalogue.
- ACLS Humanities E-Book: HEB
A collection of 2,200 books in the Humanities offered by the American Council of Learned Societies.
- EBook Library: EBL
EBL offers a wide selection of ebooks in all subject areas. All of the titles can be read online. For each title you have the following permissions : Print = up to 20% of text Copy/Paste = up to 5% of text. Use the toolbar which shows graphically how much printing and copying you have done so you can see when you are reaching the end of your limits. Then you will receive a pop up window when you have used all your permissions. If you have Adobe Digital Editions installed on your personal or staff computer you can also download to read offline for a limited period.
- ebrary
An online collection of electronic books covering a wide variety of subject matter published in the last ten years. Use Internet Explorer to view.
- MyiLibrary
Medical, nursing, and allied health e-book titles. Victoria
University only subscribes to some of the titles.
- Royal Society of Chemistry
Access to journals, books and databases from Royal Society of Chemistry Publishing.
- Safari Books Online
A selection of 100 titles from Safari Books Online's library of technology and management books, covering subjects from game design to computer science and engineering, project management, and career development. Safari titles are only available to read online; they cannot be downloaded.
- ScienceDirect
A collection of journal articles in many science disciplines and social sciences.
- SpringerLink
A collection of books, reference works and journals in science and social science research
- Thieme ElectronicBook Library
A collection of medical and scientific text books and atlases.
- Victoria University Library's Digital Collections (NZETC)
1000+ New Zealand and Pacific Island titles available as eBooks using the ePub format, and occasionally as PDFs of the page images. Most eBooks are licensed under a license allowing for almost unrestricted re-use so can be shared with friends.
- Wiley Online Library
Full text peer-reviewed ejournals from the Wiley group of publishers (now includes Blackwells journals).
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Reading offline
Most of the e-books that are available through the Library are only available to read online. Licensing conditions imposed by those who sell the e-books mean you cannot download them. However there are two main collections from which you can download e-books to read offline.
Open eBooks
- Project Gutenberg
The largest source of out of copyright ebooks is Project Gutenberg. Books are available in a number of formats, categories and languages. Once downloaded are yours to keep.
- Victoria University Library's Digital Collections (NZETC)
All 1000+ New Zealand and Pacific Island books are available to download as eBooks. Just look for the "ePub" icon in the right hand side bar and save to your computer or reading device. No special software required to download and once downloaded are yours to keep.
Licensed eBooks
- EBook Library: EBL
EBL offers content across all subject areas, the initial focus is on recent titles - most specifically in the areas of Science, Technology and Medicine. EBL features more than 100,000 titles from hundreds of academic publishers. Requires Adobe Digital Editions to read offline and are downloaded for a specificed loan period only.
- Thieme ElectronicBook Library
A collection of medical and scientific text books and atlases. Requires Abode Air and iOffline Reader both of which can be download from within the Thieme Library. Unlimited access once downloaded.
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Borrow an eBook Reader
You can now borrow a eBook Reader from the Library and load it with
e-Books. Ask at the Closed Reserve desks at Central, Commerce, Law,
Architecture & Design, or Education Libraries or
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E-books that require Adobe Digital Editions
To download titles from the EBL collection you will need to have Adobe
Digital Editions installed on your computer or e-book reader. Not
all devices support Adobe Digital Editions and it is not compatible with
the student computers provided by the University.
If you are a staff member you can have Adobe Digital Editions installed
on your university computer by lodging a request with ITS (phone extension 5050 or email its-service@vuw.ac.nz). If you have
an e-book reader you can then transfer downloaded books to that reader for the period of the loan.
If you are a student and you have your own computer or e-book reader you can download and install Abode Digital Editions to that device and then download EBL directly to that device.
EBL books are downloaded for a specified period (usually 7 or 14 days). After that period the book will not be accessible on your computer or e-book reader. However you may dowload it again at that point and again an unlimited number of times. EBL books that you "borrow" in this way will not show up in the list of "charged items" in your Victoria University Library account
Please note that not all e-book reader devices support Adobe Digital Editions.
- Adobe Digital Editions
Download the lastest version of Adobe Digital Editions from here to read licensed eBook titles offline.
- Bluefire Reader
To read an eBook which requires Adobe Digital Editions on your iPhone or iPad you can use the free Bluefire Reader app. Requires an Adobe Digital Editions ID.
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Printing from e-books
Most e-books which the Library purchases are made available under licenses which limit the number of pages you can print and the amount of text you can copy to paste into another document. Look for the "Help" link displayed when reading the book online.. This should tell you what limits have been applied.
e-books which are made freely available, such as those in the Victoria University Digital Collections, do not limit the number of pages you can print or the amount of text you can copy.
