Books and Ebooks

How are the books arranged?

The books are arranged on the shelves in numerical order according to the Dewey Decimal Classification scheme, using numbers 0-999.

Books will be issued initially for two weeks then renewed automatically for you unless they have been requested by another borrower. 

Look out for the 'shelf talkers' that will indicate where a book classified as Essential on a reading list is available as an ebook.

OneSearch - your route to library discovery

Using OneSearch, which can be accessed from any computer with an internet connection, you can search for everything that we keep in our libraries. There are also dedicated computers for using OneSearch, located within each of the libraries.

The most efficient way of locating a specific book is with an author/keyword (word in the title) search.  This video will help with this type of search. Check in which campus library it is held. If it is at your campus and there is a copy available, make a note of the classmark and location and collect it from the shelf.

If the book you want is on loan or held in another campus library, you can request it yourself from OneSearch and it will be sent to your home library or you can sign up for postal loans. Our video on reserving a book shows how to make the most of the request service.

Reading lists

The library aims to stock copies of all Essential reading list books in electronic and/or print format depending on availability. Remember that your reading list is a starting point. Successful students will develop searching skills to go beyond the reading list to demonstrate independent learning. 

We provide electronic reading lists that link your reading list directly to the catalogue so you can easily check the availability of your books in the library. A link to your module list should be available on your Blackboard module site. 

You can search for ebooks in two ways:

1. Use OneSearch to search across all of the collections in one go. Ebooks will appear in your results with an "Available online" link. Click on that to see the collection that holds the ebook and follow the link.

2. Or search each ebook collection (listed below) individually, to make more advanced searches of the content.

For more help finding and reading ebooks download our Ebooks Guide or view our video.

Ensure you login when prompted so you can view the full text of the ebooks.

Ebooks can be read online or downloaded (more information available below).

Please note that publishers may limit availability of some features due to copyright and licencing Ebook licensing explained.

Our ebook collections are listed in this table, with our main suppliers highlighted:

Read Online

All of our books can be read online and this is what we would recommend if you are on the internet, as it is the most straightforward way to access them and gives you extra functionality such as highlighting or printing.

Occasionally you will have to wait if all of our ‘ecopies’ are in use.   This is due to publishers restrictions. If all are in use you will need to wait until another user has finished with that title. Try again after a short time. You may get an option to be notified when a copy is free again.  

Other features include searching for keywords within the text, highlighting and making notes on sections of text, bookmarking chapters or sections. You can in some cases export your notes.  Printing or copying is also possible up to a certain amount of pages. See our Ebooks guide or this video for details on these features.

Downloading

Downloading allows you to make a copy of the book or a chapter to come back to at a later date when you are not online but it requires additional software and has limited functions.

Where you are able to download an ebook you will find these options:

-  download the whole book for a specific period (this varies from 1 day to 21 days) usually using Adobe Digital Editions software  to view.

-  download a chapter or pages in PDF to keep.  PDF documents can be read within an internet browser or using Adobe Acrobat Reader

In addition you can read ebooks on your mobile or tablet but you will need to first install either the Adobe Reader, Bluefire or Kortext apps from Google Play or Apple Store.

Accessibility features

A variety of accessibility features are available from the suppliers of ebooks. A key feature are screen readers or read aloud functions.  

Read aloud or Screen Readers

Using these functions can help with reading in general and aids understanding too.

This feature varies between our three main ebook suppliers and also whether you access the title online or download it. Details are below or on our Ebook screen reader options document [PDF]

Other accessibility features

Check other accessibility features such as changing background colours, changing contrast colours or adjusting your device's text display settings (described by individual supplier's Accessibility Statements in the Ebooks Collections section above).

Also see our Assistive Technology pages, our Eresources and Assistive Technology page and individual device websites:

Android accessibility settings

iOS – iPhone –iPad accessibility settings

Mac accessibility settings

PC/Windows accessibility settings

Our students come to us from a diverse range of backgrounds and to reflect this we want to increase the range of books in the library which are written by people from a BAME (Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic) background. You can get involved by suggesting books through the Get More Books scheme.

If the book is appropriate for the library and money is available, the book will be purchased. Orders can take anything from a couple of weeks to several months to be delivered depending on availability.

Suggesting other books for purchase

If you are a student and find the library does not stock a book that is on your reading list or any other title you think would be useful to you and other students, you can use the Get More Books service.

If the book is appropriate for the library and money is available, the book will be purchased. Orders can take anything from a couple of weeks to several months to be delivered depending on availability.