Digital Rights Management (DRM) refers to rules media vendors put on a user's ability to save, share, or otherwise copy items from their media collections. DRM may also include a limit on the number of users who can access the items simultaneously. Each media collection has different DRM rules, look to their help pages to find out.
Our Critics' Choice collection includes new, well reviewed, fiction and nonfiction titles. Our Children's Collection includes fiction and nonfiction books for Ages 0-18. Many are available in e-book or audiobook formats. You can access them through Libby to read or listen on your own device. (Critics' Choice print books are located in the lobby of the library, Children's are on the 2nd floor.)
Many of the free books online are public domain, including titles published before 1923 and U.S. government documents.
eBooks are digital books, some of which you read on the Web, and some which are available for download either to your computer or to e-readers such as a Kindle. Most of these collections are subscribed to by CSULB, so you will need a CSULB ID to use them. Some are free to the public.
All CSULB ebooks can be found in OneSearch.
| eBook Collection | Description | Access, Download, Print, Cite |
|---|---|---|
| ACLS Humanities eBooks | Approximately 2,800 full-text titles in historical studies, art history, literature, political science, and religion | Download and print 10 pages at a time; export to Zotero only |
| America's Historical Imprints, 1639-1819 | Includes full text facsimiles of more than 70,000 books, pamphlets & broadside from early USA: 1689-1819. | Download and print. Export RIF citations. |
| Ebook Central (from ProQuest) | Approximately 90,000 titles covering multidisciplinary topics | Entire book can be downloaded; can print up to 60 pages; export to EndNote. |
| eBooks Collection from EBSCO | More than 8,000 titles covering multiple subjects. | Access is limited to 1-3 concurrent users. The concurrent user level is displayed at the bottom of the detailed record page. |
| Gale eBooks | (Previously Gale Virtual Reference Library) offers an online collection of premier reference ebooks including encyclopedias and specialized reference sources for multidisciplinary research. You can search a single ebook or across an entire eBook collection. | Unlimited concurrent users; articles can be downloaded and printed; Export to a variety of available bibliographic tools, e.g. EndNote |
| Knovel | Engineering eBooks in the following subject areas: aerospace and radar technology, civil engineering and construction materials, composites. | Can download and print in PDF format, up to 15% of a book at any one time. You can create citations by clicking on the Tools icon on the left side of the content. |
|
(formerly Overdrive, rBdigital) |
Popular fiction and non-fiction titles to read or to listen to through personal device app. | Download the Libby app onto your personal device, and register. See other tab for instructions. Check out period is 3 weeks. |
| Oxford Reference | More than 2 million entries from hundreds of cross-searchable Oxford encyclopedias and other reference books, many of which are illustrated. | Unlimited concurrent users. Articles can be printed or emailed. Cannot export to citation manager software. |
| Skillsoft | Includes IT and Desktop Video collection. Full text of IT books on hundreds of different technology topics. Includes books from premier industry publishers, such as Wrox, McGraw-Hill, and Microsoft Press as well as popular book series, such as The Complete Reference, Inside Out, and Bibles. Allows up to 6 simultaneous users. Formerly called Books 24/7. | Limited reading. |
