Library and Internet Skills

Library and Internet Skills

Electronic Books at U of T

Find your book online!

Electronic books, or e-books, are books that are published online. Sometimes they are referred to as electronic texts. The University of Toronto Libraries e-Books page indexes a number of collections of electronic books. They include a wide range of content from Shakespearean plays to modern poetry; from historical documents to current computer texts.

Finding e-Books at U of T | U of T Produced Digital Collections | e-Books on the Free Web
 

e-Books on the U of T Libraries Web Site

You can access electronic reference sources as described below. For information on how to access U of T electronic resources from home, see Accessing Electronic Resources.

To access electronic books:

1. Go to the library home page at http://www.library.utoronto.ca
2. Choose e-Books.

Search Tips: Finding your title on the e-Books page

To search the e-Books page:

A) Enter the title you want in the search box. Remember that not all titles are listed individually. You may need to look for a collection first. See tips below.

B) Use the alphabetic lists to browse by title.

C) Browse the vendor/systems, or publishers listings.

Tips

The e-books page does not index all of the titles included in the collections we subscribe to. This means, for example, that if you want an electonic copy of Susanna Moodie's "Roughing it in the Bush," you would not find it by entering "Roughing it in the Bush" in the search box.  You would have to enter the name of a collection of early Canadian literature, "Early Canadiana Online," and look for "Roughing it in the Bush," within that collection. A portion of our electronic books are listed in UTCat, the U of T Library catalogue, but the majority are not.

How do you find out what collections we have? You will note that there is no index by subject. You can try searching a keyword from your subject in the search box. For example, if you were looking for Canadian material, you could enter "canadian." Even better, enter "canad." This will find "Canadian" and "Canada."

If you want assistance, feel free to ask a librarian (see Individual Libraries and Hours) or use our Online Reference Service.
 

e-Reference

Please note that e-books that are considered reference sources, in other words encyclopedias, dictionaries, directories, and so on, may be indexed on the e-Reference page. If you don't find what you want on the e-books page and you think it could be a reference item, try this page. In fact, you could search both sections at once, by choosing "More e-Resources" from the Library Home Page, and entering the title in the search box. This will search our entire electronic collection.
 

e-Books on the Free Web

A substantial number of e-Books or electronic texts are available free on the Web, particulary historical material and older literary texts that are no longer subject to copyright restrictions, and current publications of government and research institutions. You may be able to find the text you want by simply entering the title in a Search Engine, or by using a directory of electronic books or texts.
 

Using Search Engines to Find Electronic Texts

Example:

1) Choose a Search Engine, such as Google at http://www.google.com/.

2) Enter the name of the title that you want, for example: "Roughing It in the Bush"
(Note that Google and some other Search Engines will let you put quotes around your title so that it will search for those words together as a phrase.)

3) Have a look at your hits. Do you see an electronic version of your text? If not, you may want to try another Search Engine, or reconsider what you entered. For further tips on Web searching, check out the Internet Resources page on the Library and Internet Skills site. Remember, of course, that not all texts are available on the Web, so you may not be able to find what you want.
 

Directories of Electronic Books and Texts

Another approach would be to explore collections of electronic texts. The following are some suggested web directories of electronic books and texts:

BUBL LINK 5:15: Book and Text Collections

CETH Directory of Electronic Text Centers

University of Pennsylvania Digital Library Programs and Projects

University of Pensylvania Online Books Page

University of Virginia Library Electronic Text Center  

Evaluating Web Sites

Before you use an electronic text, you may want to evaluate the source. Is the version of the text that you have found reliable? Find tips on evaluating Web Sites on the Library and Internet Skills Site.

Citing electronic books in your bibliography

If you are writing a paper, you will need to know how to cite the text in your bibliography or list of references.

If you see a U of T crest (  ) beside a title, this means that it is licensed for use by U of T students, faculty, and staff only. U of T students, faculty and staff can access licensed resources from off-campus, if they have set up a proxy server account, or use UTORDial. As a general rule, anyone can use these resources on the U of T campus.

If you see the phrase (Available on local CD-ROM) click on "More Info" to find out what library you will need to visit in order to use the e-book on CD-ROM.

Some of our electronic books may require special software to use. This software should already be loaded on library computers. If you are accessing an e-book collection from home, you can click on "More Info" after the title to find out if you need to download software. If your e-books use pdf files, you will need Adobe Acrobat.

This page was last updated . Your comments and queries are welcomed.
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