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Electronic Books

Here are some tools for finding and reading ebooks on the web:
  • NetLibrary E-books service (includes e-books from CLICnet)
  • Online Reference Books Includes items such as Oxford Reference, Library and Information Science, Encyclopedia of Social & Behavioral Sciences, MN FactBook
  • Other Sources available for free from the Internet

NetLibrary

More than 12,500 copyrighted and public domain eBooks. You will need to create an individual account to use NetLibrary.

Go to NetLibrary Guide to NetLibrary
(requires Adobe Reader)

Online Reference Books

Britannica Online
Browse or search more than 100,000 articles from Encyclopædia Britannica. Includes photographs, illustrations, sound files, and video clips; a dictionary and thesaurus; and statistical data for the countries of the world. [More info]

Credo Reference NEW!
A digital reference library of dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, books of quotations, and subject-specific titles, all from leading publishers. Covers many subjects and includes a sophisticated linking system that enables you to find related entries across the entire Credo library. [More info]

Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science
2nd edition, revised and expanded. Contains articles providing overviews of many topics in library and information science. International in scope.

Gale Virtual Reference Library
A database of encyclopedias and other reference sources for multidisciplinary research. So far, we have purchased the titles that appear below. If you're connecting to these e-books using the Internet Explorer browser, please read our special instructions.

  • Business Plans Handbook -- Contains 20 actual business plans for various small businesses [More info in CLICnet]
  • Encylopedia of Health and Aging [More info in CLICnet]
  • Encyclopedia of Multicultural Psychology [More info in CLICnet]
  • Encyclopedia of Multimedia Technology and Networking [More info in CLICnet]
  • Encyclopedia of Philosophy [More info in CLICnet]
  • West's Encyclopedia of American Law -- Provides current information on more than 5,000 legal topics, such as the Americans with Disabilities Act, capital punishment, domestic violence, gay and lesbian rights, and physician-assisted suicide. [More info in CLICnet]

International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences
Covers the social and behavioral sciences with a broad view of the relationships between genetic, brain, behavioral, social, and cultural factors and processes.

Magill's Medical Guide (expires 31 December 2010)
Medical encyclopedia covering diseases, disorders, treatments, procedures, specialties, anatomy, biology, etc., suitable for student researchers or general readers

Minnesota Fact Book Online
This database has been discontinued by the database provider.

NetLibrary Reference Center
Online versions of encyclopedias, dictionaries, handbooks, etc., available through NetLibrary. [Guide to NetLibrary]

OED Online
Online version of The Oxford English Dictionary, the authoritative guide to the meaning, history, and pronunciation of over half a million words, both present and past, from across the English-speaking world [More info]

Oxford Reference Online
Full-text dictionaries and other reference books in many subject areas from Oxford University Press [More info]


Other sources of electronic book texts

Many of these sites contain older works that are no longer under copyright.

  • Project Gutenberg
    One of the first sources of free electronic texts. Browse by author or title, or search for a specific item. All items are available for download.
  • Books On-Line
    Searchable list of over 10,000 titles freely available from online directories and archives. There is also information about women writers and banned books.
  • Bartleby Library
    Begun in 1993, the Bartleby Library makes the texts of over 70 great books available online.
  • Wired for Books
    Wired for Books brings literature alive with audio, video, and old-fashioned text of modern and classic stories, plays, poems, and essays. It also contains author interviews conducted by Don Swaim for CBS Radio.
  • Alex Catalogue of Electronic Texts
    Collection of digital texts concentrating on American and English literature and Western philosophy. You can browse or search the list of documents. Also, the content of each document is searchable.
  • Bibliomania
    Over 60 texts of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and reference works. 
  • Google Books
    View full books or snippets of text from books showing your search term.

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