Affordable Instructional Materials & Linking to Library Resources Library Books and e-Books

When you use e-Books, remember that in most cases, only one person can use that book at a time.  Just like with print books, if one person is reading an e-Book, another person can't.  If you know that you will need a book to have multiple readers at the same time, please contact your subject librarian.

E-Books are convenient because the student does not have to be in the library to use them, they can be searched by keyword, and the student can print out only the pages needed.

Linking to an e-Book is similar to linking to an article. Most e-Book links (PURLs) you create will have two parts:

• Permalink or URL for the book. This will be unique to each book.
• Prefix URL (or, Proxy Prefix). This will always be the same. UAB's prefix is http://uab.idm.oclc.org/login?url=

For example, let's say you want your students to access this book:

DePaulo, J. Raymond, and Leslie Alan. Horvitz. Understanding Depression What We Know and What You Can Do About It. Wiley, 2002.

STEP 1: From the library catalog, go to "View Online" and select the link that will take you to the e-Book in EBSCOhost EBooks.

STEP 2: From the e-Book record, use the Permalink tool to view and copy the permalink.

Step 3: Once you have the permalink, add the prefix URL to form a new link: http://uab.idm.oclc.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=67055&site=ehost-live

Note that some databases do not have a Permalink tool, and some e-Book URLs will not require the prefix URL. For specific database instructions, see below.