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Getting Started with E-Books

Introduction to & instructions for using the e-book collections available to LSC-UP users.

Access Link

Quick Facts

Read online or borrow to read in the app or another device

Borrow for 1-7 days

Broad, multi-disciplinary academic topic coverage

Contains Full e-books on a range of topics, including arts and humanities, sciences, social sciences, business, technology, history, language and literature.
Best for Academic reading and research.
Multi-user? Most books are only available to a single user at a time. How many copies are there?
Printing Limits Up to 100 pages at a time. Permissions vary by title, determined by the publisher.
Download Limits Download chapters or whole books for 1-7 days in PDF format. User account required to download. Books can be read online without check-out.

If you haven't done so already, you should create an EBSCO account. You'll need an account to download e-books from the EBSCO database. From any EBSCO access page, click "Sign In" on the top right of the screen. Click on "Create a new Account." For convenience, you may use your Lone Star email and password to set up the account.

Access, Read, Download

You will need:

  • a web browser (such as Chrome or Firefox) and
  • a document reader (such as Adobe Reader).

Most devices will have an application for both of these functions already installed.

Recommended:

  • an EBSCO account, if you wish to download books for offline viewing 

You can read EBSCO e-books in the browser without creating an EBSCO account, downloading extra software, or even checking the book out. However, you cannot take notes, save your place, or read offline.

Off-Campus Access:

You will need:

  • LSC library barcode number

or

  • LSC email and password

 

 

Picture of LSC ID, Chrome logo, Firefox logo, and Safari Browser logo

Read E-Book in Browser

Just navigate to the collection, authenticate as an LSC user as needed, and search or browse to locate books. Select "PDF" or "EPUB" Full Text to open the book.

Downloaded E-Book

You'll need to download Adobe Digital Editions. This free software will allow you to read ACSM (Adobe Content Server Manager) files on your desktop. 

To use your EBSCO e-book across devices (e.g. on your computer and on your iPad) you will need to use an Adobe ID for this authorization. Once you have authorized your devices using your Adobe ID, your checkouts and bookmarks will remain across devices.

The EBSCO Mobile app provides access to e-books (and articles and whatever content you can read through EBSCO).

Kindles

In order to read EBSCO e-books on your Kindle or in the Kindle app, you can create a PDF of the e-book in full text view and transfer using Send To Kindle. Note: depending on licensing, you may only be able to save a small portion of the book to pdf.

Nooks, Kobos, etc.

For other e-reader devices, you will need to authorize Adobe Digital Editions on your computer and transfer the files manually. This requires a free Adobe ID. Use an email address you will remember and have access to, as this will also be your Adobe ID. Once you have activated the software on your computer, you are ready to download. Follow the instructions on the tab For PC/Mac tab of this box to download a book to Adobe Digital Editions.  

See How Many Copies Are Available

This is an easy process -- you just have to know where to look!

1. Click into the item record of your desired book by clicking the title in your search results.

Click the article title, the first and largest text in the search result.


 

2. Without opening the book, scroll down about halfway. At the bottom of the book information (after author, publication year, summary, etc) you'll find a line with information for Concurrent User Level. This lets you know how many people can borrow or read the book at the same time: it could be 1 user, 3 users, unlimited users, or other variations.

If you don't see this field right away, just wait a couple more moments -- it's the last thing to load, typically.

Towards the middle of the page is a piece of information labeled "concurrent user access." It will say 1 user or 365 users or unlimited, for example.