Question and Answer

How can students in courses work together to minimize ebook turnaways?

For course use, the library can only guarantee access to unlimited-user ebooks. Students may find ebooks in library search with more restrictive licenses. Students are welcome to use these but should plan ahead to avoid access issues. Turnaways happen when a 1-user or 3-user license exceeds its maximum number of simultaneous users.

To reduce ebook turnaways:

  • Close the browser tab when you're done reading the ebook online. This will make the ebook available for another user.
  • Don't download the whole ebook at once (Springer and Wiley ebooks are exceptions — they allow you to easily download the entire ebook and keep it). 
  • Download chapters or pages instead of the full ebook (see How can I get help with ebook accessibility?). In Ebook Central and EBSCO, there's often a limit on the number of pages you can download at once. This limit for EBSCO ebooks resets when you open a new browser tab or window; the limit for Ebook Central ebooks resets each day. Eventually you can download all of the chapters as PDFs. With Ebook Central and EBSCO chapter downloads, the PDFs don't expire (they sometimes do with full-book downloads). 
  • If ebook content is the basis for homework or test questions, don't wait to access the ebook the night before! Plan ahead and download chapters in advance.

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