An e-book (short for electronic book, also written eBook or ebook) is converted digital text that forms the equivalent of a conventional printed book, sometimes protected with a digital rights management (DRM*) system. The Oxford Dictionary of English defines the e-book as "an electronic version of a printed book," but e-books can and do exist without any printed equivalent. These e-books are said to be born digitally.
*DRM or Digital Rights Management refers to the controlled use of digital media by preventing access, copying or conversion to other formats by the end user.
UVic Libraries provides access to hundreds of thousands of eBooks via the library search.
Access to eBook titles is provided in a number of different ways and the license dictates what the user can do with an eBook (such as downloading, printing a chapter, requesting via inter-library loan).
Library Search is a google-like search in the UVic library collection. Do you know we have books in different languages? You can search your keywords in German, Chinese, or Japanese to find these books. Here is an example. Use the limit "Library catalog" (on your left side of the result page) to limit your results to books in our collection only.
Find the book you want in the Catalogue and get its call number (see Reading call numbers to locate your book ). Also check its location: McPherson, Reference, Music and Media, Priestly Law, etc. You can see this information in the main result list or the catalogue record (shown below), which you see when you click the item's title.
When you find a book, look at the ones shelved around it - because they're arranged by subject, they should be similar. You can also browse similar items virtually by clicking on relevant subject headings listed in the item record.