Click on the Word Document link below  to open a complete guide to Proquest Ebooks (or right click to download the file).   This guide provides information on how to access and use Proquest Ebooks and gives information on reading the books online, downloading chapters/pages and entire books.  

Raynor Memorial Libraries has access to numerous ebooks from the Proquest vendor on many topics. You may see these referred to as ebrary ebooks or Proquest Central ebooks; they are findable and accessible via the Marqcat/Marqcat Plus catalogs.   

You can also find Proquest ebooks in the Proquest ebook Collection listed on the Libraries’ page containing links to our various ebook collections: https://libguides.marquette.edu/ebook-collections .

 

There are several ways to read the Proquest Central (ebrary) ebooks:

1. The easiest way is to click into the book in your Internet browser. This will open up the built-in Proquest’s Ebrary Central reader and you can continue to read the book if you are online.

You can download a limited number of pages/chapters (the publisher lists how many pages can be downloaded/emailed/printed per session per day.) If you download pages, you can then read them off-line as they will be PDF or EPUB files on your computer. These files are yours to keep.

Please note: although the ebook may state that you can only download a limited amount of pages (it varies per book), it is per every 24 hour period.

You could download/email/print the maximum number of pages allowable one day, and then, after 24 hours, you are able to download another maximum number of pages. You could repeat this after another 24 hours, and so on.

You do not need to have a personal Proquest free account in order to download/print/email limited amounts of pages. You can download pages as a guest. However, Proquest does state that in some instances that you may not be able to download as many pages as you would if you had the personal Proquest account which is free to create.

An advantage to reading the book online is the ability to download chapters/pages as PDF (or in some cases, EPUB) files which are yours to keep.

However, please be aware, that one possible disadvantage in relying on the Proquest ebook reader to access the ebook online is that in the case of a single user license, if another person does a full download of the book, the ebook will temporarily not be available to others for between 1-4 days or until the person releases the ebook from their Proquest ebook account. 

 

2. A second option is to download the entire ebook, however, your download of the book will ONLY be temporary (1-4 days) but you must first download and install a third-party software program (the free Adobe Digital Editions). Note: this is not the same as the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

The advantage to downloading the entire book is that you can have access to the entire ebook while not connected to the Internet.

 

A second advantage to downloading the entire book is that in the case of books with only a 1 or 3 user license, you are assured access to the book for a limited amount of days.

If you download the entire book this is essentially “checking out” the ebook and in the case of a  Single user license for the ebook, you alone will have access to it for the checkout days (similar to checking out a print book.)

Others trying to access the book will receive a response that the book is currently in use and to check back again. Also, the Read Online and Download Book icons buttons on the ebook record will be greyed out.

In order to download the entire ebook, you will also need to create a personal Proquest account as well as a free personal Adobe Digital Editions account.    

 

The first method above is the easiest as you do not need to create a personal Proquest account, and if you wish to read part of the book while not on the Internet, you can download a number of pages (note: each ebook lists how many pages you can download per each 24 hour session.)

Below is an example of a Proquest ebook record found in the Marqcat Plus catalog: 

 

To begin reading/accessing the ebook, click on the Online Access link in the Marqcat Plus record.

 

Note: if you are off-campus, you will be asked to enter your Marquette username and password and press submit. (Those who are off-campus and have the campus VPN downloaded and enabled will skip this step.)

 

On the sample screen below, it will list how many users can access the book at one time. In the above instance it is 1 patron at a time – the same as it would be for a print book. 

Please note: If you are not able to access a Proquest ebook and get a message saying that all copies are in use, please let the Raynor Library Information Desk staff know. The Library will check to see if an upgraded simultaneous user license is available for purchase

PLEASE NOTE:  because of the COVID-19 outbreak and stay-at-home orders, some of Proquest’s book publishers are allowing our 1 to 3 user licensed Proquest ebooks to be increased to unlimited simultaneous users. This will be available through mid-June 2020. However, not all  publishers are participating.

Click here to see which publishers are allowing unlimited user license capability.

 

Here is a sample Marqcatplus record for a Proquest ebook:

To read the book online, click the Read Online button in the left margin menu (circled in the screen shot above).   Scrolling downward, you'll see that you can view/download individual chapters also.  (Again, how many pages you may download varies, in this instance the maximum number of pages is 113 per 24 hour period.)

Included on the above screen are the publisher permissions.  Many of the books have Digital Resource Media protections that may only allow you to print/email/save a certain number of pages usually between 0 – 100+ pages.

In the case of the record above, the limit is 113 pages.

The book viewer screen:

  

Notice the Search Within Book textbox:  enter keywords there, and then you can jump directly to where the keywords are located. 

At the top are tools for downloading, printing, highlighting and more. 

Scrolling downward will also allow you to see the individual chapters where you can either read them online or download the pages as PDFs which will be yours to keep.

                 

 

Important to note:  24 hours after you have downloaded the maximum number of pages from a specific Proquest ebook, you are again able to download up to another maximum number of pages.

The same is true again after another 24 hours have past, and so on.

Also, keep in mind that for ebooks that only have a single user license, if another person has downloaded the book for temporary use, you would not be able to download any pages until their checkout period of the downloaded book has ended.

When you enter a Proquest Central ebook will see the following menu at the top of the page:

 

For explanations of various icons as seen at the top of the Proquest ebook click here. 

Please note:  if you download/email/print pages from the ebrary book, you will get a screen asking for you to log into your personal Proquest account.  It is free to register for a free Proquest account -- you can register or sign in in the upper righthand side of the screen.  However, you can also log in as Guest to download the pages.

There are several advantages in creating a personal Proquest account – you are able to make use of the “bookshelf” feature where you can have listed the ten most recent Proquest Central ebooks that you recently viewed.  You can also store any notes or highlighted text that you had taken while reading Proquest ebooks. 

For more information about Proquest Central ebook’s Bookshelf feature, click here.

(Please note: although your bookshelf can contain text that you have highlighted from Proquest Central ebooks, if you export the data, only your notes/annotations will be exported and not any highlighted text from the ebooks.)

Click here to learn more about using the Proquest reader to read an ebook online.

Click here to watch a video tutorial on about how to read Proquest Central ebooks online.\

Click here to learn how to download a chapter or page range in a Proquest ebook.

 

The second way to access Proquest ebrary books is to download the entire book to your PC/Mac.

 

NOTE: you are able to download the entirety of a Proquest Central ebook, however, the download is only temporary AND you will also need to download and install third-party software (the free Adobe Digital Editions) on your machine. 

(Please note:  Adobe Digital Editions is not the same software as the free Adobe Acrobat software.

 

If there is a Full Download icon     in the ebook’s record, then you are able to download the entire ebook. 

However to do so you MUST log into your personal Proquest account and ALSO  have the free program, Adobe Digital Editions downloaded and installed on your machine. (Note:  this is not the same software as the Adobe Acrobat Reader.) 

 

When you click the Download Full Text link, the book will be opened in the Adobe Digital Editions software.  The advantage to downloading the book is that you are able to access the ENTIRE ebook even while not connected to the Internet.

 

A second advantage is that in the case ebooks with 1 or 3 simultaneous users, you will have assured access to the book for the “check out” period. When you download the full book, you will have a choice between 1-4 days for checkout. 

 

After the checkout period has passed, the book will no longer work on your machine and you would remove the ebook’s record in your Adobe Digital Editions. 

 

There is no ability to download specific pages/chapters as PDF files (for you to keep) from the ebook when open in Adobe Digital Editions.  If you wish to download specific pages/chapters you will need to return to the ebook’s main page to download them from there. 

 

 

Please note:  any notes or highlights made in the ebook in Adobe Digital Editions will be deleted when your book’s checkout period expires.  

For more information on full-downloads of Proquest ebooks see the following:

Click here for instructions on how to download the full-text of a Proquest ebook. 

 

Click here to watch a video tutorial on how to download a Proquest ebook.

Click here for more information about how to download and install the Adobe Digital Editions software.

Click here for instructions on how to return a Proquest ebook before the end of the checkout period.

 

 

Mobile Devices:

It is possible for Proquest Central ebooks to be read on a mobile devices such as phones or small tablets.  Click here for instructions.  

 

Accessibility

Click here for information regarding accessibility of Proquest ebooks.

 

Questions / Issues

Please note: for off-campus users, it is not required that you use the campus VPN software on your machine to access and use Proquest ebooks, However, if you continually experience problems with the Proquest ebooks, we advise that you download the campus VPN software and have that enabled when you are using Proquest ebooks

 

Click here for more information in download the campus VPN software on your machine.

 

If you have any questions about Proquest ebooks or ebook collections or are experiencing difficulties, please contact the Raynor Library Information Desk.