E-Books: Finding and Using Electronic Books

• Downloading
  • Most e-books can be downloaded for offline viewing.  Once an e-book is downloaded, you can read it on your device without an internet connection.
  • In order to download e-books from ProQuest and EBSCOhost, you will need to create free accounts for these platforms.
• Licenses
  • If we have a “single-user license” this means only one patron can view the e-book at a time and it can’t be downloaded.
  • If we have a “two-user license” this means two patrons can view the e-book at a time.  Only one person can download the e-book at at time and the second copy of the e-book is reserved for online reading only.
  • If we have a “three user-license” this means three patrons can view the e-book at a time.  Up to two people can download the e-book at a time, and the third copy is reserved for online reading only.  
  • If we have a “unlimited users-license”, this means any number of patrons can download the e-book and/or view the e-book online.
  • If you need assistance determining which license we have for an e-book, please see "Determining Number of Users".

Many e-books are protected by Adobe digital rights management (DRM) technology, which limits your ability to copy, print, and share content. To access e-books with Adobe DRM, you will need a free Adobe ID (see below). You will use this Adobe ID to authorize the Bluefire Reader or ADE (Adobe Digital Editions) reader app on your device.

For off-line reading on Android and Windows devices, you will need to download the free Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) software.  The Windows devices, in addition to supporting ADE, also support Bluefire.  There is more information on Bluefire below.

Click "Download" at the top.

Bluefire Reader is a free reading app for iOS and Windows.  Please note that Bluefire is no longer supported on the Android or Kindle platforms.

Features include:

• highlight, comment, and bookmark
• export annotations to email
• get definitions for words
• organize e-books into collections

Download e-books directly to Bluefire Reader. Sign in with an Adobe ID to access Adobe DRM-protected e-books. 

To download an e-book to your iOS device, once you have found an e-book, follow these 5 steps:

1. Sign in to your personal account with ProQuest or EBSCOhost
2. Click on the download button
3. Confirm the loan period (typically 7-21 days)
4. Select the Bluefire Reader app to open the file
5. Enter your Adobe ID and password (first time only)

The Bluefire Reader app will manage the loan period. Once the loan has expired you will not be able to open the file. 

Two download options are EPUB and PDF.  In the PDF format you cannot change the font size.  The only way to do this is the pinch zoom technique on each page.

As of Fall 2019, the Bluefire reader no longer supports the Android version of that app. ProQuest has a great site explaining how to download an e-book to your Android device using Adobe Digital Editions instead of Bluefire.

You can download an e-book from ProQuest to your Kindle Fire. 

You can also download an e-book from EBSCOhost to your Kindle Fire.