eBooks
For assistance with finding and using eBooks, contact research help by chat, telephone (805.756.2649), email, or in person at the Research Help Desk.
Cal Poly offers access to eBooks from several different eBook providers:
Provides full-text and full-page-image access to titles in most humanities disciplines and in area studies. The books included have been recommended by scholars as significant contributions to their respective fields. Offered by the American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) in collaboration with ten learned societies and nearly 80 contributing publishers.
CAB eBooks cover such topics as animal and veterinary sciences, agricultural economics and rural studies, environmental sciences, plant sciences, human health and nutrition, and leisure and tourism studies.
Search a keyword or phrase through the full text of the 1,400 online book titles and retrieve relevant titles and sections. The database also provides 3,500 publicly available titles, primarily literary classics. eBook Collection electronic books may be previewed with your browser or checked out for exclusive personal use for a specified period of time. About half the collection consists of single user titles, while the other half is licensed for 4 simultaneous users. If you access a title that is already in use, a message will appear to ask you to try the request later.
Safari / O'Reilly Tech Books Online
Safari Books Online is a premier on-demand digital library providing over 9,800 programming, technology, digital media and business books and videos online. Cal Poly has access to a specially-tailored subset of 3,551 titles from Safari Books Online's overall content.
Open Access (Free) eBooks
There are also many other eBooks freely available on the web. These are primarily older books, which are no longer protected by copyright laws. However, some sources offer previews of newer books, and can be a great way to discover what books are available on a topic.
Google has partnered with libraries to scan over 7 million books and make them available online. The advanced search allows you to refine your search by date, author, title, and more. It also has personal book list features (e.g. to read, have read). In addition to conventional books, Google Books now offers online editions of older trade and popular magazines (e.g. Life, Mother Jones). Only books no longer protected by copyright are fully available online. In most cases you will be allowed only a short preview. This is still a great source to identify potential books and read a sample to learn if the book will be useful to you. If the book record has a "find it in a library" link, click on it to see if Cal Poly has it (just enter our zip code, 93407). If not, request it via Interlibrary Loan.
The Internet Archive is a non-profit working to build an Internet library offering permanent access to digital collections. One of its partners is the Open Library a site where over one million ebooks are freely available. At the Text Archive section of the Internet Archive website you can also find online versions of many classic texts. Sub-collections include the Universal Library Project (also known as the Million Books Project), and Project Gutenberg. The Internet Archive has also partnered with the Open Library to create availability of Accessible Texts for blind and dyslexic readers.
eBooks in PolyCat
You can search for many eBooks in PolyCat. Any search you run will search for eBooks as well as traditional printed books. However, if you wish to search for eBooks only, you can follow these steps:
- Type in: eBook and (subject goes here)
- Look at the list of results. Click on the underlined title of the eBook to learn more about it.
- Navigate to the eBook by clicking on the link in the yellow box (will say "view the online version" or "connect to this resource online")
