Monday, March 14, 2016

Where have all of the ebooks gone?


Members of the Vise Library have been working on a tedious project to delete our ebooks (about 100,000 of them!!! WHEW!!!) from our Surpass Catalog System.  Our goal is for the library catalog to only house the physical items that are available for check out.  We hope this frees up some some much needed space in this system for a smoother searching experience for our physical materials.  

This does not mean that we do not have any ebooks available to read or for research purposes.  These items are also housed in our databases and our Discovery Service system (which allows you to search everything in one place!).  Since the ebooks were available in multiple places, we decided to eliminate some redundancy.  

If you are wondering how to access ebooks from now on, please see below!

The first step is going to the library's main page (www.cumberland.edu/library).  You will then need to scroll down to the search bar for our discovery service:




As you can see we have entered the search term dogs (because, why not).  You will then be taken to a log in screen (use your usual log in that is used for Canvas or CAMS).  This will grant you access to the discovery service and our databases.


Since the discovery service searches every database that we have access to, you will need to distinguish what type of item you are looking for (like you would academic journals while doing research).  Since we are looking for ebooks specifically, you will see on the left hand side we have highlighted ebooks.  You will need to click on the box to the left of the word ebooks to filter this option:



After selecting the ebook option, we clicked on the first book that was listed (Dogs : Domestication History, Behavior and Common Health Problems).  To view the book you will just need to click on the PDF option or if you are on a tablet (and have the Bluefire app) then this allows you to download and view the ebook offline.  



We have selected the PDF version of this book.  You can pick which section of the book you want to view from the contents section listed to the left hand side:


Now you are able to read through the book like normal!  

We hope this blog was helpful in locating the Vise Library's access to ebooks.  If you have any questions in the future please email us at libraryfrontdesk@cumberland.edu or calling 615-547-1299.






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