ebrary reader and medical texts
TRANSCRIPT
This article was downloaded by: [Baskent Universitesi]On: 21 December 2014, At: 13:36Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH,UK
Journal of Electronic Resourcesin Medical LibrariesPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/werm20
ebrary Reader and MedicalTextsAmanda Ross-White aa Bracken Health Sciences Library , Room 131,Botterell Hall, Queen's University Kingston, ON, K7L3N6, CanadaPublished online: 23 Sep 2008.
To cite this article: Amanda Ross-White (2008) ebrary Reader and Medical Texts,Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, 4:4, 67-71, DOI: 10.1300/J383v04n04_06
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J383v04n04_06
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eBOOKSHELFRussell Smith, Column Editor
ebrary Reader and Medical Texts
Amanda Ross-White
ABSTRACT. ebrary has been serving libraries with electronic contentsince 1999. Libraries can purchase individual titles or a pre-selectedpackage, as well as use ebrary to distribute their own proprietary con-tent, making it a useful option as a corporate knowledge managementtool. This review will provide more information about ebrary’s propri-etary reader software as well as some of the content available through itsclinical and life sciences package. doi:10.1300/J383v04n04_06 [Articlecopies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Delivery Service:1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address: <[email protected]> Website:<http://www.HaworthPress.com> © 2007 by The Haworth Press. All rights re-served.]
KEYWORDS. Electronic books, ebrary, general reference, e-books
Amanda Ross-White ([email protected]) is the Clinical OutreachServices Librarian, Bracken Health Sciences Library, Room 131, Botterell Hall,Queen’s University Kingston, ON K7L 3N6 Canada.
Comments and suggestions should be sent to the Column Editor: Russell Smith(E-mail: [email protected]).
Journal of Electronic Resources in Medical Libraries, Vol. 4(4) 2007Available online at http://jerml.haworthpress.com© 2007 by The Haworth Press. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J383v04n04_06 67
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INTRODUCTION
ebrary has been serving libraries with electronic content since 1999and, according to the company’s Web site, has over 1,000 library cus-tomers, so readers will likely be familiar with its product. Libraries canpurchase individual titles or a preselected package, as well as use ebraryto distribute their own proprietary content, making it a useful option as acorporate knowledge management tool. This review will provide moreinformation about ebrary’s proprietary reader software as well as someof the content available through its clinical and life sciences package.
The eBrary Reader
While ebrary texts are available in PDF format, users will have todownload proprietary software, the ebrary Reader, in order to viewthem. This should not pose difficulties for users who are increasinglyaccustomed to downloading a wide variety of software, from Flash toActiveX to QuickTime, to be able to use Internet digital content. How-ever, hospital librarians will want to be aware of this to avert potentialfirewall issues. The author was able to download the software with nodifficulty at three test hospital sites, as well as on an academic campus.Only one hospital firewall presented a barrier to this application; how-ever, this was easily resolved by contacting the hospital’s IT depart-ment. Once the ebrary Reader is installed, the user must then create ausername and password to use the features of InfoTools.
ebrary’s InfoTools
The InfoTools are what separate ebrary’s Reader from a standardPDF document viewer. Several of these features are customizable bythe library, and librarians considering a purchase should give carefulconsideration to the best available tools to maximize their use. The au-thor did not find the default options to be particularly helpful. The firstof these tools is “Define,” which allows the user to select a word in thetext and have it searched in an online dictionary. The default option,Merriam-Webster, is not as powerful as the full Oxford, which Queen’sUniversity subscribes to, or as specialized as a medical dictionary,which hospital libraries may choose to link to instead. Similarly, the“Explain” tool links to an encyclopedia (default is Encyclopedia Britan-nica). Electronic medical encyclopedias may be a better match for li-braries purchasing this option. It was not clear whether the “Define” and
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“Explain” tools could be changed for different collections, as academiclibraries may purchase several subject areas.
The third InfoTool, “Locate,” is very problematic. Three options areprovided, one of which is a simplified version of MapQuest, which fea-tures only U.S. cities. Another is a National Geographic atlas. Neither ofthese were able to find Pictou County (a county in Nova Scotia, Can-ada), but the National Geographic could find Prince Edward Island. Asearch for Oxford found Oxford, Alabama, but not Oxford, England.Considering that the purpose for a map tool is to find places with whichthe reader is not already familiar and that the existing availability of freemaps on the Internet allows much more robust global searching, thesetools ought to be changed to other options. Google Maps was able tofind all of the locations mentioned above without difficulty.
The most useful of the InfoTools is the ability to highlight and takenotes within the text. Users can then save these notations with the bookon their “bookshelf.” Both of these features were very intuitive andeasy to use (see Figure 1). Highlights can be saved in three colors, anda tab to the right of the screen keeps highlighted passages and notes or-ganized.
eBookshelf 69
FIGURE 1. Highlighting Text Using InfoTools
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One major concern of both academic and hospital libraries is privacy.ebrary would serve readers well by having a clear link to their privacypolicy on the help screen, which unfortunately is not the case at present.With notes and passages saved to a specific user account, users willwant reassurances about how that information is used and who mightpotentially have access. Of concern to Canadian institutions is the phys-ical location of ebrary’s server, which may make their saved notes andpassages accessible under the PATRIOT Act. CSA is one company thathas accommodated this concern for Canadian users of RefWorks by al-lowing a second server that is physically located in Canada to be man-aged by the Ontario College and University Libraries consortium, sothis information will be held outside U.S. jurisdiction.1
Users are allowed to copy and paste from the texts, as well as print.Copying and pasting will result in a citation being created automaticallywithin the document, and users can choose from a limited number ofcommon formats, including MLA and APA styles. Printing also willhave pages clearly marked with source information, very helpful toundergrads who do not always take copious notes.
TEXTS CURRENTLY AVAILABLE THROUGH eBrary
The large variety of titles is available through ebrary. The focus is onacademic publishers, so some hospital libraries may find the titlesslightly esoteric, although I was able to find some 25 of Doody’s core ti-tles on the list of ebrary titles. Major publishers include: BMJ Pub-lishing, Cambridge University Press, McGraw-Hill, the National Acad-emies Press, Jessica Kingsley Publishers, Oxford University Press, andSpringer-Verlag, among others. Academic libraries will find ebrary auseful source for eBooks in a wide variety of disciplines, with some1,300 titles in the medical field alone, the majority of which are recentpublications (since 2002). Hospital libraries will appreciate being ableto purchase individual titles as their needs and budgets require.
CONCLUSION
Both smaller hospital libraries and larger academic medical schoolsare likely to find the ebrary Reader and ebrary content useful in their re-spective settings. The large selection of books and InfoTools will beparticularly useful for academic libraries seeking to meet the needs of
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undergraduate and graduate students. The individualized content andknowledge management capabilities are particularly useful for hospitallibraries that seek content to meet their unique needs. While improve-ments can always be made, the customizable options for the InfoToolsoffer a lot of promise.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
ebrary318 Cambridge AvenuePalo Alto, CA 94306 USATel: 1-650-475-8700Sales: 1-866-4-EBRARYFax: 1-650-475-8881Sales: [email protected]: [email protected]
REFERENCE
1. Alphonso, Caroline. “Universities Move to Hide Work from U.S. Eyes.” TheGlobe and Mail, Toronto, Ont. (November 11, 2006): A15.
doi:10.1300/J383v04n04_06
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