University libraries across the country are offering students and staff more and more online content. This includes electronic books or ebooks for short. At Bradford we have had access to a range of ebooks for a while but the latest developments have allowed us to explore the marketplace for more ebook material especially in the area of taught undergraduate texbook titles. 

The Library have signed up to the JISC National eBooks Observatory Project. In a nutshell the aim of this national project is to investigate the potential of electronic textbooks to the higher education community, and to gather data for publishers on possible business models. In collaboration with JISC and selected publishers, participating HE libraries are offering a selection of core texts free of charge to their members for the next two years. A total of 36 textbooks ranging from medicine to media studies, and engineering to business and management are now available to use. Students and staff may access this content with their Athens username and password via two different platforms. MyiLibrary hosts the content for engineering, media studies, and business and management. The Ovid platform hosts all the medical titles. The 36 texts available via the project may also be located via the Library Catalogue. In the near future, Library Staff will be contacting academics in departments to disseminate information about ebook provision at the Library, and providing demos to students. Contact the eResources Librarian for further information, comments and feedback via email.

In addition to the national project the Library is running a year-long local trial on making ebook content more widely available to users. The trial focuses on using the MyiLibrary and Dawsonera ebook platforms for any electronic titles purchased during the one year period. The content acquiried during the trial will complement the existing ebook packages like ForensicnetBase and HeinOnline and other ebook stock provided by the Library. Users may view all ebook content via the Library Catalogue or via the new ebook webpage. The number of ebooks will grow in time so keep checking the catalogue and ebook sites for more content as the trial progresses. As always we welcome comments, questions and feedback from all our users. The eResources Librarian is available for further information via email.