These questions and answers are generic, not specific to any one platform.  Please see the EBSCO and ProQuest pages for information specifically about them, including screenshots, instructions, and links to more help.

How do I find ebooks? 

Viewing vs. downloading an ebook: what's the difference?

Are individual accounts required? What do they allow you to do?

Is Adobe Digital Editions required?

How many pages can I print? 

How long can I use an ebook? 

Can I request or renew an ebook? 

How many people can use an ebook? 

How do I cite an ebook in my paper?

Unfortunately, there is no one best way to find all ebooks!  Below are suggestions for various situations; we recommend that you try several.

1. When you're looking for a specific book, search MARQCAT.
   • Enter title or keywords.
   • For Material Type, select "Online".  You may want to skip this step in order to see if we own the title in print.
   • Click on the Submit button at the far right.
2. When you want to explore a topic, search MARQCATplus.  After you run a search:
   • On the results page, look in the left margin for Filter by Format Type. 
   • Click on Show More
   • Check the box for ebooks.  
3. Browse through the list of ebook vendors on the Ebook Collections webpage, and search directly on their platforms. 
4. Be aware that some ebooks will not appear in either MARQCAT or MARQCATplus.  We are not able to add catalog records for ebooks from vendors such as O'Reilly, nor for freely available ebooks from institutions such as the Library of Congress, the World Bank, Project Gutenberg, or NCBI.

In both MARQCAT and MARQCATplus, when a title is available online, you'll see a "CONNECT to..." link in the record. 

Viewing an ebook:

This simply means reading the ebook online in your browser, without checking it out to an individual account.

Downloading:

This means you can read the ebook offline. It requires Adobe Digital Editions and an Adobe ID.

Short answer: no.

You can view, or read, the ebook online without an individual account.

Longer answers:

An individual account on the ebook platform is required for the following:

• Checking out an ebook: This is most important when using an ebook with a license for only one user. Checking-out the book means that use of that ebook is reserved for you during a specific period of time. 
• Downloading the book:  Downloading the book is useful if you want to read the ebook offline. Often Adobe Digital Editions is also required to download an ebook. See more about Adobe Digital Editions below.
• Annotating or highlighting the ebook is only possible if you check out the book. Once your checkout expires, your notes will be lost.

Things to know:

Be aware that an individual account on an ebook platform is not tied to your MU account password.

To view and read the ebook online using only your browser, no, you do not need Adobe Digital Editions.

To download and read the ebook offline, Adobe Digital Editions is required for some platforms.  

If you want to be able to use Adobe Digital Editions on more than one computer or device, you must also have an Adobe ID.

Below are links for downloading the software, and the FAQs for it, including instructions for setting up an Adobe ID.

That depends on both the platform and the publisher.  Some publishers only allow a chapter, about 20 %, or up to 60 pages to be printed in a given 24-hour period. Check the Details page of the platform to see what is allowed for a specific book.

Short answer: it depends!

Longer answer: 

Different platforms allow different check-out periods.  Where we can, we make different check-out periods available to you.

When there is an unlimited user license for an ebook, you can use it as long as you like!

Short answer: it depends.

Longer answer:

In general we buy single licenses, or copies, of ebooks, the same as we do for print books.

However, some vendors offer unlimited usage licenses, which means that many people can use the ebook at the same time. Some vendors offer licenses for 3 users.  When we know that an ebook is likely to be heavily used, for example in a course, we try to buy the unlimited license.

If you are repeatedly turned away from using a specific ebook, please let us know:  email us at memref @ marquette.edu.

Requesting an ebook:

Only Ebsco will allow you to place a hold (request) on a book that is being used.  It requires an individual account.  Once the book is released, you'll receive a notification.

Renewing an ebook:

On the Ebsco platform only, you can renew ebooks. 

For all other platforms, you cannot.  If you need the same title after the check-out period expires, check it out again and, if downloading, download it again.

Obviously this depends on the style format you need to use. But many of the ebook platforms will provide pre-formatted citations for you. Among them, ProQuest Ebook Central, Ebsco, JSTOR and more.

In addition, there is help on the Citation Styles research guide. 

If you use citation managers such as RefWorks or EndNote, we also have guides and documentation for them.