Germanna Libraries Homepage Sub-Menus

You can access library e-books by searching the library e-book collection through the QuickSearch box on the library home page. When you get to the search results page, e-books will have a link that says "Online access" that you can click on. You can filter your results to just e-books by using the "Full Text Online" filter on the right side of the results page. When you search for e-books, keep your search terms broad and use just a few words to get the best results.

Once you access a library e-book, you have a few options:

• You can view the e-book online, scrolling or paging through it in the browser window.
• Often the e-book site offers a way to print a chapter or so of an e-book if you want to have a print copy of the content.
• Some of the e-book sites also let you create a personal account so that you can save highlights and notes in the e-book.
• You can usually search within the book for specifics terms if you are looking for a particular topic and want to jump to those specific pages.

We provide e-books through more than one site, so the sites might look different or they might provide different options, but the basics of use are the same.

• There are only due dates for library e-books if you "check out" the e-books, which is unnecessary most of the time. The due date in those cases is handled automatically - you do not need to "return" the e-book. Check out periods for e-books are typically one week.
• Instead of "checking out" the e-book, you can view it online in a browser and close it when you're done. Many of our e-books do not have limits on the number of people who can view them at the same time, which makes "checking out" the e-book irrelevant.

You do not have to be on campus to access library e-books. Just like library databases, you can access them from off-campus. Once you find an e-book in QuickSearch and click on the online access link, you might be prompted to login with your myGCC account credentials. All of this can be done off-campus.

The library offers mainly academic research e-books. Fiction or other popular non-fiction titles are usually not available to us through the sellers we use. The public library offers many more of those types of titles as e-books which you can easily read on your e-readers or tablets. Let us know if you want to see more leisure reading e-books from us.

We don't intentionally purchase textbooks or e-textbooks which are assigned for a course. Most publishers do not sell textbooks as e-books to libraries. Sometimes a course may come with an e-book or you may have an e-book option for your textbook, but those e-books are not associated with the library.

• While many people of all ages still prefer print, the Germanna Libraries have found that Germanna students use our e-book collection more than our print book collection. This is usually because e-books are more convenient - you can access them online anywhere, rather than come to a library location in person. E-books are also often available to many students at the same time.
• In addition, there are many e-books provided by the library which are funded by the state, so they come at no cost to Germanna Libraries. E-books are often more cost effective than print books because multiple people can access them at the same time from anywhere. Since we are not a residential college and we have multiple locations, e-books help us provide content more conveniently.