E-books can be a convenient alternative to print, but it's important to know how they "work." Because of publisher and author rights, each e-book we purchase may have different pricing, access models, restrictions on downloading or printing, check-out periods, software requirements, and more. We will work with you and your students to make using e-books an easy process.
For information on how to access & use our e-books, please visit our How To guide.
As interest grows in OER opportunities, and as we continue to build on our Textbooks in the Library project, you may be wondering what is available in electronic format as an alternative to print textbooks (and as a way to save students money).
The following are vendor platforms the library uses for purchasing e-books--we use these because they have large catalogs and they can provide institutional licensing for their titles. You can simply provide us with textbook titles and we can check these sources, or if you'd like to browse the catalogs, please use the logins provided below.
Username: guestsearch
Password: bsu2023Beavers
Please do not make a list within this resource. Use the form provided via the link in the Fac/Staff email.
A note on access models: We will work with you to determine an appropriate access model, but for the purposes of creating lists, please select the one that best suits your students' needs.
Username: libbsu
Password: BemSta23!
Please do not make a list within this resource. Use the form provided via the link in the Fac/Staff email.
A note on access models: We will work with you to determine an appropriate access model, but for the purposes of creating lists, please select the one that best suits your students' needs.
JSTOR has over 10,000 open access e-books that can be searched through JSTOR's interface. JSTOR also has scholarly and university press books for purchase, but you'll need to contact a library staff for titles.
Project Muse has almost 10,000 purchased and open access e-books that can be searched through its interface. Project Muse also has scholarly and university press books for purchase, but you'll need to contact a library staff for titles.
A WorldCat search allows you to search most of the libraries of the world. You can use Advanced Search to limit your results to e-book format.
Open Educational Resources (OER) Options
OER is quickly becoming a great way to save students money. What is OER?:
Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.
Open license refers to a license that respects the intellectual property rights of the copyright owner and provides permissions granting the public the rights to access, re-use, re-purpose, adapt and redistribute educational materials.
Below are some places to search for OER:
