Stay Informed

Stay Informed is a series of hints, tips, guides and recommendations written by the Library Staff to help make using the library easier and more enjoyable.

database01

Announcing eBooks & Our New Authentication System

Upgrades to Your Online Experience - 

As part of on-going efforts to improve the user experience the library has upgraded its authentication system to Shibboleth, a standards based, open source software package for web single sign-on. Shibboleth allows registered users to sign in using just one identity across our online resources. The benefits include a number of systems:

  • Moodle - Seamless integration of the library and the Moodle online learning platform under a single username and password.
  • Full-Text Finder - Go directly to a copy of an article if it is held by the library in a different database using the Full-Text Finder button.
  • Book Catalogue - Renew loans and place holds online Log into your borrowing account to renew loans and place holds on checked out items and books that you would like put aside.
  • RefWorks - Manual account creation at the click of a button for the bibliography and citation manager
  • RefWorks - A further upgrade to RefWorks is expected in the coming months.
  • On-Campus Journals - The removal of on-campus limitations for a selection of journals.

Login details have been sent to all registered users. If you have lost access to the library please contact us. Moodle users should log in to Moodle as soon as possible to confirm their accounts.

E-Books

IMI Library is proud to announce the launch of our new e-book collection in conjunction with our new authentication system. A starter selection of e-books can be found by searching the book catalogue. We will continue to build the collection and add further titles from here on out.

E-books appear alongside print books in the book catalogue but are differentiated by an e-book icon and the note [electronic resource] in their title.

Below are some points for getting started.

How do I borrow e-books?

Follow the link in the book record. The book will appear in a new tab and you can either read it in your browser or download a PDF copy. Adobe Digital Editions is required to open and read PDF copies. You will be prompted to download the Adobe software the first time you attempt to download an e-book or you can download it here. Adobe Digital Editions is third party software that allows seamless access to books, including those borrowed from other libraries or bought from stores, and it works across devices using the same Adobe user ID. We strongly advise that you do not download an e-book to or use your Adobe user ID on any public or shared device.

How long can I borrow e-books for?

E-books can be borrowed for anywhere between 1 and 7 days. The loan period is shorter than the loan period for print borrowings. PDF copies will expire and become inaccessible once the loan period is up, at which point Adobe Digital Editions returns an error message.

What does limited access mean?

E-book purchasing models typically permit access to either one user, three users or an unlimited number of users at a time. If three people are accessing or have downloaded a three-user book then a fourth person attempting access will be turned away until the loan expires on any downloaded copy or a user viewing an e-book online closes their session.

Can I put a hold on an e-book?

This depends on where the e-book is hosted. As it stands if a title is hosted by ProQuest LibCentral you cannot put a hold on it at all. For titles hosted in DawsonEra or EBSCO you need to follow the link from the book catalogue to the e-book portal before you can place a hold. Because e-books are hosted in separate portals you cannot manually place a hold using the book catalogue like you can for print books. Library staff cannot put holds on e-books for you.

Can I print from an e-book?

Most of the time but never from a downloaded PDF copy. Copyright restrictions limit you, in general, to printing a maximum of 10% of a book. If the copyright holder has stipulated that print copies of any part of their book cannot be made then this will be upheld.
https://library.imi.ie/announcing-ebooks-our-new-authentication-system
library.imi.ie
crawl=CC-MAIN-2018-30
26581
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:KVOLLUBMWLCWG4GUORACM6QOCBCXP4JJ
<urn:uuid:d604eb82-10af-4e7c-b627-bf72a94c8c01>
2018-07-18T22:10:12Z
52.18.57.142
text/html
sha1:ZMXKYX2GIAX7ADDXTNCCKHIN667DIH65
<urn:uuid:e59bb895-7b05-43e8-ac3d-de4900b3b5be>
https://library.imi.ie/announcing-ebooks-our-new-authentication-system
response
<urn:uuid:51e80276-0ae2-4a50-a699-7020250a1e08>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-93-215-43.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2018-30
operator: Common Crawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for July 2018
publisher: Common Crawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf