Ebooks: Using e-books

Electronic resources marked with red lock symbol:

  Electronic resources marked with green f letter are subscribed with FinELib consortium: 

Problems or questions about e-books?
Please email: elele@oulu.fi

E-books aren't forever. The e-book now available may no longer be available in a year, for example.

E-book services have different terms of use for example with regard to the number of simultaneous users and loan period.

When you login with your University of Oulu user ID (Haka Login), you have access to the electronic resources also from outside the University of Oulu Network.

Almost all e-book services enable reading in web browser.

Most service providers enable the downloading of e-books to the Adobe Digital Editions application for reading and downloading into user's own laptop computer, tablet or USB flash drive. In most cases downloading requires:

• Personal Adobe ID
• Adobe Digital Editions application
• Personal user ID to the e-book service in question
• Reader application.

An e-book will automatically become inaccessible when the checkout period is exceeded. If you wish to continue reading the book you must download it again.

The e-books are returned on their own after the end of the loan period and no fines are imposed. Therefore, you may not need to return the loan. However, you can return the e-book before the end of the loan period, so that the prospective person in line can access the book faster. The book can also be returned with Adobe Digital Editions.

The loan period for the reserved e-book starts automatically as soon as the reserved e-book returns from the previous borrower.

See the instructions for e-book services for more detailed information.

Some service providers have an app for borrowing and reading e-books.

Adobe ID

• Adobe ID is needed for using DRM-protected material.
• You get an Adobe ID by creating a personal Adobe account.
• Adobe ID allows you to authorize an application that enables managing DRM-protected material on several devices at a time. Adobe ID authorization can be removed from a device when it is no longer needed.

Adobe Digital Editions

• Application for reading and managing e-books and other digital publications.
• Enables the transfer of DRM-protected e-books from one device to another.
• Supports several e-book formats, e.g. PDF/A and EPUB.

Adobe Reader for Mobile Devices

• Adobe Reader can be used to open and manage PDF files

An example of how to download a DRM-protected book from a computer to your own device:

1. Create Adobe account (Adobe ID). 
2. Install Adobe Digital Editions and authorize it by logging in with your Adobe ID.
3. Download and install a reader application to your device. 
4. Authorize the device by logging in with your Adobe ID.
5. Look up a book for example in Oula-Finna and open it through the link in the e-book service. Some e-book service providers require that you create a user account before you can download files from their collections. In this case follow the instructions on the website, create an account and log in.
6. Download the ebook into Adobe Digital Editions. 
7. Connect the reading device with your computer (USB cable).
8. Transfer the book to your reading device in Adobe Digital Editions by dragging and dropping the book icon onto the reading device icon in the sidebar.

An example of how to download ebook to Ellibs app

1. Download the Ellibs app to your device.
2. Log in with the University of Oulu account (HAKA Login).
3. Borrow e-book by tapping on the 'Borrow' button.
4. Choose a loan time. The e-book will automatically appear in the reader screen.

When using works (e.g. journal article, e-book) obtained from academic research databases or platforms, APA style rules are:

• do not include the database or platform name
• do not include URLs
• include a DOI if the work has one
• if a work does not have a DOI, treat the work as a print version.

Material without page numbers

• Provide a heading, section name, or paragraph number.
• For ebook chapters without pagination, omit the page range from the reference.

Web citations require much of the same information as print sources, but also provide the location of an online source:

1. Permanent identifier, etc. DOI, URN, Handle, or permalink.
Search for DOI:

2. Reference to web archive, Internet Archive or Memento, either existing version or version archived by you.

3. Avoid using the URL.

Source and more information in Finnish: Hakala, J. (2017). E-viittaamisen ihanuus ja kurjuus. Informaatiotutkimus, 36(2), s. 77–85. https://doi.org/10.23978/inf.65190