Find and Use Ebooks

Ebook Central from ProQuest combines owned, subscription, and demand-driven access models, and hosts over 270,000 online books across a wide range of subjects. The first time you access Ebook Central during a browser session you will be asked to log in with your network username and password. This allows you to access saved ebooks with notes and highlighting on your Ebook Central Bookshelf without needing to log into an additional account.

Use the link below to start searching or browse by subject on the Ebook Central platform.

Every ebook in Ebook Central has a publication details page, where you can quickly find:

• Table of Contents and Description, bibliographic information
• Availability details and copy/print allowances
• To begin working with the ebook, select Read Online

When reading online:

• Use the icon menu on the left-hand side of the page to look at Details, the Table of Contents, or Search the book.
• Use the bar at the top of the book to save and print chapters as PDFs, copy sections of the book, add the book to your Ebook Central Bookshelf, or add annotations and highlight sections of the book. 

Certain titles in Ebook Central offer a 10-minute preview. When 10 minutes has elapsed (or when you try to copy/print or download one of these titles), a prompt will appear asking whether or not you would like to create a loan. The default loan period is 7 days. First-time users need to fill out a short informational form.

After creating a loan you can copy, print, and download. A counter tells how much copying and printing you are allowed in accordance with publishers' restrictions (generally 40% for printing and 20% for copy-and-paste).

You will be able to see your Current Loans and how much time is remaining from your bookshelf on the Ebook Central homepage. If you enter Ebook Central directly, you are taken to your personal Ebook Central bookshelf. Recently Accessed books can also be seen here, which is nice if you want to go back to a book you've looked at previously.

Ebook Central downloads can read in Adobe Digital Editions (Windows or MacOS) or Bluefire Reader (Windows only). Both must be authorized with an Adobe ID.

"Downloading" a DRM-protected ebook does not involve downloading the book's contents to your computer. Rather, the process requires downloading a small .acsm file that works as a "key" to unlock access to the book on an Adobe server for a limited amount of time.

Once downloaded, the book will display the time remaining on the loan. When the loan expires, it is marked as such and can no longer be opened without requesting a new loan through Ebook Central.

For reading downloaded ebooks on iOS, Android, and Windows phones and tablets, we recommend the free Bluefire Reader app. After downloading and installing the app, you will need to authorize your device with an Adobe ID.

To read ebooks in Bluefire Reader, use the web browser on your device to access the ebook through the library catalog or by searching in the library's ebook databases directly, then select the download option. Downloaded ebooks will automatically open in the Bluefire Reader app.

As with Adobe Digital Editions, after your loan period expires the downloaded ebook will no longer be accessible and you will lose any highlighting, notes, or bookmarks you've created.