E-books Warning

When accessing our e-books at present you may get a security warning in your browser.  This is related to a recent platform update but it is perfectly safe to ignore the warning and proceed.

Depending on which browser you are using the warning page is slightly different.  These warning pages (and how to proceed) are indicated below.

Internet Explorer

Chrome

Firefox (three steps)

1. 

2. 

3. 

This issue will be rectified as soon as possible but in the meantime just proceed as indicated above to view the e-book you wish to access.

Cambridge E-books Trial

We have obtained trial access for one month to Cambridge's complete online collection of e-books.

Cambridge Books Online contains thousands of e-books titles in the humanities, social sciences and education.

Chapters can be downloaded in pdf format and titles are indexed in such a way that they are easily discovered through commonly used search tools such as Google Scholar.

While the trial is live, why not dive straight in to http://ebooks.cambridge.org/ and browse or search your own areas of interest.

If you want to check a particular title or search for a term you can start right away by typing your terms in below:

• 
• Widget Search Keyword
• 

This trial is obtained for the purpose of assessment for any future purchase.  We'd be glad to hear from staff or students about how relevant these collections are to you or your department.

Remember to check our Trial Databases page on our website to see what is currently available in addition to our existing resources.

School Placement Resource

World Book Online is an excellent online resource primarily aimed at children and those working with or teaching children.  It is currently available on trial access to all SPD staff and students.

Click here to access the collection - it's also available via our website.

To access this resource you'll need our trial login which will be emailed to your College account.  If you haven't received this, please just ask in the Library or Resource Centre and a member of staff will help you.

This site is presented in four sections - World Book Web, Speciality Sites, World Book Digital Libraries and World Book Classroom.

Together these contain children's literature, encyclopedia articles, primary source collections, educator tools, student activities, pictures, audio, and video, complemented by current periodicals and related websites.

As with all of our trial subscriptions we invite feedback from staff or students, so please let us know if you like it!

Ebooks Unavailable 8/12/12

Our ebook providers are carrying out an essential upgrade of their platform this Saturday, December 8.

As a result all Library ebooks will be unavailable between 10am and 6pm on that day.

Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

SAGE Research Tools

For the month of October SAGE are offering FREE access to their set of online research tools:

• SAGE Journals
• SAGE Research Methods
• SAGE Knowledge

You may already be familiar with SAGE Journals through our journal subscriptions or if you have accessed DCU Library resources.  SAGE Research Methods and SAGE Knowledge are two other online tools which allow you to refine and focus your research further and are well worth a look.

SAGE Knowledge - SK - is a social sciences digital library containing more than 2,500 eBook and eReference titles.  The platform allows researchers to cross-search all of these titles and seamlessly access a wide breadth of reference and monographic content from one source.

SAGE Research Methods - SRM - aims to help you create research projects and understand the methods behind them. It retrieves content from various sources - books, journals, reference sources - to provide a single information source for research methods and research design questions.  It contains explanations and definitions of more than 1,400 research methods terms.

If you want to try out any of these tools just go to http://www.sagepub.com/freetrial2012/ and register for free access until October 31.

Oxford Handbooks Online Trial

We have trial access to Oxford Handbooks Online: Political Science until February 18.  This module of the Oxford Handbooks series comprises of 24 titles each covering a different aspect of the area.

Titles available in this module include:

• The Welfare State
• Local and Regional Democracy in Europe
• Climate Change and Society
• Public Policy

Political Science is one of four modules in the Handbooks series, the others being Business Management, Philosophy and Religion.  

If you find this resource helpful or would like a look at any of the other modules please let us know at info.library@spd.dcu.ie.

Open Library

Last week we posted about our e-book collection reaching 200. These are core texts which we purchase from suppliers to ensure access for large numbers of students. If you've used our e-books you'll know that there are some restrictions on how you can use the titles, both in terms of downloading and viewing them online. These relate to Digital Rights Management, a thorny subject in ebook-land at present.

For copyright-free material (where the author's death occurred more than 70 years ago) the same restrictions generally don't apply and there are some excellent resources which offer full-text access to out-of-copyright titles, such as Project Gutenburg.

Another such site is Open Library, a community project run by the Internet Archive which was created with the aim of providing a single page on the web for every book ever published - as they put it "a lofty but achievable goal".

To date, over 20 million records have been added to their catalogue. Where these titles are copyright-free (currently over 1 million records) they provide full text access, either via their excellent BookReader browser app or various downloadable formats for different devices.

They've also launched a scheme for in-copyright titles called the Lending Library. Libraries contribute digitised versions of books in return for borrowing access for their users to other libraries' e-titles. It's still relatively early days for this scheme (and we're not currently a member!) but it looks an interesting model for libraries and e-books in the future.

Watch this space...

E-books are 200!

We now have over 200 e-books in our collection. With one or two exceptions, all of these titles are also held in print format in the Library. This way, if the 'real' book is out on loan or you can't make it to the Library on time you know you can access the content in an online format. So no excuses!

Our e-books are viewed through your web-browser and can be found on our Catalogue in the same way you search for print items. To see a list of all titles available in this format just click on the 'SPD E-books' icon on the Catalogue home page. Staff can also put links directly to e-books within their Moodle topics.

If you haven't accessed on of our e-books before the online tutorials page on our website has a couple of videos to get you started, like the one below. Or if you'd like a run-through in person or have any questions such as how to link to them via Moodle, just contact Síol, our information and research skills service:

• info.library@spd.dcu.ie
• 01-8842170

E-books Access

Our e-books are available once again. Many thanks to our colleagues in DCU for their work in resolving the technical problems.

If you have any access problems with any of our online resources please let us know either in person or by email or phone (01-8842170).

E-books Back Again...

Our e-books are now available again.

If you have problems accessing e-books or any of our online resources please let us know either in person at the Information Desk or via email or phone (8842170).

UPDATE 11/11/2010: We are continuing to experience access problems. This is currently being investigated and access will be restored as soon as possible. Apologies for any inconvenience caused.

Ebooks Unavailable

Due to a technical problem our Dawsonera e-books are currently unavailable. Apologies for any inconvenience, we hope to have access restored as soon as possible.

A Century of E-books...

We've passed the 100 mark in our e-book collection, all viewable from on or off-campus using your usual SPD login. You can see the full list by clicking the "SPD E-books" icon on our Catalogue.

Any users with questions about how to view or use them can contact our Information Desk either in person or by phone (8842170) or email. Any staff who wish to link to relevant e-books from within their Moodle page can contact Liam O'Dwyer for assistance.

E-Books Galore!

Almost 50 titles from our short-loan collection are now available in e-book format! To see the list of titles go to our Catalogue page and click on the SPD E-books icon.

You'll also see an 'ebook available' label on print versions of available titles to alert you. The e-books are viewed through your web browser and offer some handy functions:

• word/phrase searches
• export references to a RefWorks account
• ReadAloud tool for users with impaired vision
• download a title for up to 7 days for offline access
• copy/print within copyright limitations
• staff can link directly to an ebook from Moodle

With these titles we hope to increase accessiblity of core titles for St. Pat's students and staff:

• when you're off-campus
  
• outside of Library opening hours
• if all print copies of a book are out on loan
• if you have your full quota of books out
  
• and there's no fines!
  

All the titles require you to login whether on or off campus. For staff this is their novell login while for students it is their normal login (as used for everything Moodle, email etc.). If you don't know your login details please contact IT support.

If you would like a run-through of the format please contact info.library@spd.dcu.ie or ask for Ben or Ronan at the Library Information desk.

Our thanks to the Quality Promotion Committee for their support of this initiative.

Children's Literature Resource

As well as alerting you to subscribed or trial databases, we like to draw your attention to worthwhile open access resources which are available online free of charge.

One we've come across recently is International Children's Digital Library (ICDL), a project of the University of Maryland founded with the Internet Archive.

The ICDL Foundation aims to make "the best in children's literature available online free of charge" and it currently contains 4365 books in 54 languages, all readable not just in full text but with quality scanned images of every page.

The collection can be searched or browsed in various ways - by location, language, year, author or reader age. The books could be used with a projector and there's a teacher training manual with ideas on how to apply the resource in the classroom. There's even an iphone application which allows you to browse and read titles from the ICDL on the move!

Have a look!

New E-Books

The following course texts can now be accessed in e-book format as well as in hard copy:

Holy Terror (Eagleton)

Developing Language and Literacy with Young Children (Whitehead)

Developing Thinking and Understanding in Young Children (Robson)

Commonsense Methods for Children with Special Educational Needs (Westwood)

E-book titles are accessed by searching our Catalogue as you would for a print title. Whenever you see an e-book icon and/or "[electronic resource]" after the title, click on the icon or the text link to access the title.

You are required to login to access the online version - students login with their usual username and password; staff should use their novell login.

New E-book

Students and staff of St. Patrick's College now have access to the New Catholic Encyclopedia in e-book format through the Gale Virtual Reference Library.

The Encyclopedia is prized for its scholarly presentation of persons and subjects related to Catholicism and the humanities. This 15 volume, second edition features revised and new articles. Among the 12,000 entries in the encyclopedia are articles on theology, philosophy, history, literary figures, saints, musicians and much more.

It is accessed simply by clicking here.
Happy browsing!