Ebooks Platforms and Policies

The NC State University Libraries provides access to thousands of ebooks across a variety of ebook publishers and vendors. To check which features are available from the various ebook publishers and vendors, click on the dropdown menu below. You may also view a summary view of the features for all providers (Google Sheet).

For some providers, some features are labeled as "Varies." This is because we purchased titles from these providers with different models. For example, for ProQuest, we have Safari ebook collection with 5 simultaneous user limit, and other ebook titles with one or three simultaneous user limit. Individual ebooks within the library catalog will also have information on how many users can access the title at once, as seen in this example catalog record.

We also have ebooks on Amazon Kindles.

Questions? Contact Beth Ashmore or Danica Lewis.

Choose a platform:

American Chemical Society (ACS)American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA)American Mathematical Society (AMS)American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE)American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)American Society for Microbiology (ASM)Association for Computer Machinery (ACM)BCCampus Open Textbooks CollectionBloomsbury Collections Business Expert PressCABICambridge University Press (CUP)Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory PressDuke University PressEBSCO (Aggregator)Elgar OnlineElsevierGale Literature Resource CenterGeological Society of LondonGovernment Accountability OfficeIGI Global OnlineInstitute of Electrical and Electronics EngineersInstitution of Civil Engineers (ICE)Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET)IOP PublishingKnovelLibreTextsMcGraw-HillMerlot IIMIT PressMorgan and ClaypoolNational Academies PressOER CommonsOpen Access Publishing in European NetworksOpen Textbook LibraryOpenStaxOxford University PressPressbooksProject MuseProQuest (Aggregator)RittenhouseRoyal Society of Chemistry (RSC)SAGESociety for Industrial and Applied Mathematics (SIAM)SPIESpringerTaylor & FrancisUniversity of MichiganUS Government Publishing OfficeWageningen Academic Publishers (WAP)Walter de GruyterWiley-BlackwellWorld Scientific

Definitions

Digital Rights Management (DRM): It's intended to protect ebooks from illegal use by tying ebooks to the account that purchases them. With DRM, users can only use the ebooks on a certain devices (like an Amazon Kindle) or in certain apps (like Adobe Digital Editions). This definition is adapted from ebooksarchitects.com. Most of our ebook providers listed here are DRM-free. For DRM-free ebooks, you have unlimited access to the ebooks, and you can download and/or make a copy of them.

Accessibility Statement and VPAT: An Accessibility Statement deals with general policies and commitments to accessibility made by a publisher or platform developer. A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) provides information regarding the specific measures taken to ensure the accessibility of an ebook or an ebook platform. Where possible, we have linked to vendor statements on accessibility and publicly hosted VPATs. Because products and platforms are constantly being revised and improved, many publishers will supply us with VPATs upon request, rather than hosting material that may quickly become outdated. If you have questions about specific features of a platform's accessibility, contact your subject specialist and they can request a current VPAT for you.

VPAT Alert Level - This alert level is measured by evaluating the Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) provided by the vendor for completeness and depth. This can provide information about how much the developers of the platform are monitoring their platforms for their accessibility. High alerts demonstrate that there were a number of questions left unanswered by the VPAT and Information Unavailable means that a VPAT could not be located.

PDF Alert Level - This alert is measured by evaluating sample PDFs from the vendor on a series of criteria including if the PDFs are image-only, have tags on textual properties, have images with alternate text, have accessible tables, have accessible lists, and have accessible headings. High alerts demonstrate that the PDFs tested were missing key accessibility features.

Website Alert Level - This alert is measured by evaluating the homepage, search page, and results page of the platform using the WAVE tool. High alerts demonstrate that there were a number of errors, contrast errors, and alerts identified by the WAVE tool on the homepage, search page, and results page.

University of Washington Keyboard Testing Alert Level - The University of Washington Libraries performs keyboard accessibility tests on their library e-resources and publishes the results of tests on their website. The tests determine if a user can perform a search, retrieve a result, use a result (i.e. scroll, turn pages, etc.) using only keyboard navigation. High alerts demonstrate that one or more of these activities is not accessible using only a keyboard.

Library Accessibility Alliance Evaluation - The Library Accessibility Alliance contracts with accessibility vendors to test library e-resources and publishes the results of tests on their website.