Ebook Central - Electronic Books

How to Use EBook Central

Step 1
After doing a search in Ebook Central, click on the title link of an Ebook Central e-book from your search results. Selecting the author the book listing will show all the titles by the author that BCTC owns in eBook central:

Step 2: 
After clicking on the title link, you will see a screen similar to the one below. Many of our titles are available with "unlimited access" meaning that multiple people can use the eBook at once. There are some titles where we only own one-person-access to the title. This means that while the title is in use, the book will be unavailable. There are no loan periods on EBook central. So once the user closes out of a "one-person-access" title, it will become available once again. Click  the "Read Online" button to open and read the book, or click "Download book" to download it to your device; you will need to create a free EBook central account to download books to your device:

Step 3:
Above the book is a toolbar with several utilities to choose from. We've highlighted four of the tools below that you will use frequently for research.  The first 2 options in the ribbon are "Download the Book" and "Chapter Download". You will need to create a free EBook central account to do this. The sixth option down is "Share Link". It provides a URL directly to the item. Do not copy the URL of the webpage to share the book. That URL won't work. Use the URL under "Share Link". The seventh option is the super handy "Get Citation" tool. If you want to use an item in research and need to cite it, you can select this option and choose the citation style. It is formatted for use on a "Works Cited" page.

Bonus Tip
On the left side of the screen, there is a search bar and table of contents. You can use this search bar to look for keywords and the table of contents will have a small bar below it to show if a chapter contains this keyword. Even better, if you click on a chapter that contains your keyword, the keyword will be highlighted in the text!

EBook Central Guide PDF

EBook Central Bonus Features

BCTC users can set up a free Ebook Central account (request using BCTC email address) to enable some of the extra features, below: 

•  Full-length books can be downloaded for a short-term check out period using Adobe Digital Editions software 

• Books can shelved on a digital "Personal Bookshelf"

• Personal Bookshelf books can be highlighted, bookmarked and annotated to suit your individualized needs

In order to add an item to your personal bookshelf on EBook Central, select the fourth option in the top right of the record, "Add to Bookshelf". You can organize the book into a specific folder of your choosing.

You can create new folders for whatever project or research paper you may be working on.