Greenfield Community College

How do I read an e-book?

When searching in the GCC catalog, you may find that the title you want is available as an e-book, or electronic book. The Massachusetts e-book collection is brought to you by the Boston Public Library Statewide Reference and Referral Center, funded by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.

In order to access e-books, you will need to create an account at netLibrary, the supplier of these electronic titles. The titles can be accessed either through the library catalog or directly from netLibrary. However, because the four terminals near the Reference Desk are dedicated to the catalog and do not allow access to the open Internet, they also do not allow access to netLibrary. You must use a terminal with access to the open Internet, either in the library or from home.

When you locate an ebook in the catalog and click on the title for the book, you will see text like this in a box below the publishing information:

Screen shot of e-book information for a GCC catalog entry

If you are using a terminal at GCC that has Internet access, click on the An electronic book accessible through the World Wide Web; click for information link to access this title. You can also use that link if you are at home and you already have a personal netLibrary username and password for this collection (you will need to log in to read the e-book). Although you can use some netLibrary features without logging in, to check out e-books or access your account from outside your library, you must create a user account and log in to netLibrary.

If you do not yet have a netLibrary account that is linked to your library, follow the link Click here for information about creating a netLibrary account in the lower right hand corner of the netLibrary page and follow the instructions for creating an account. You will have to choose a user name and password. After you have created your personal netLibrary account, you can close the new window to return to the catalog.

Reading e-books
The browse this e-book online function allows you to view the full text of an e-book for only a short period of time (approximately 15 minutes). The check out and read online function allows you to view and search the entire text of a book and its table of contents. You can return an e-book before your access time expires by accessing the eBookshelf page and selecting the return e-book link from the pull-down menu.

Logging out
When you finish using netLibrary, you should close your user account by logging out to prevent unauthorized users from accessing your account. Click on the Log Out button on the right side of the page. The session will log itself out after 20 minutes of inactivity.

Help
If you need assistance creating a netLibrary account or accessing netLibrary e-books, please consult the librarian. NetLibrary provides its own Help screens for using the e-books most efficiently. These screens include search tips, how to print from netLibrary (printing an entire e-book violates copyright laws), and how to cite e-books using APA and MLA style.

Other electronic books on the web

There are other sites on the open Internet that offer electronic books and the full text of periodical articles. These lists are not intended to be comprehensive:

American Verse Project
Bartleby.com
Books (from the Internet Public Library)
A Celebration of Women Writers
Electronic Text Center (U. of VA)
International Children's Digital Library
The Online Books Page
Page by Page Books
Project Gutenberg (the Internet's oldest producer of free electronic books)
SearcheBooks