WISER Social Studies E-Books for the Social Sciences Kate Williams and Hilla Wait

Structure of today’s session To understand the value of e-books for teaching and research To understand their limitations Overview of e-books in in the Social Sciences Time to explore with assistance available

What is an ebook? e-book, n.  A hand-held electronic device on which the text of a book can be read. Also: a book whose text is available in an electronic format for reading on such a device or on a computer screen; (occas.) a book whose text is available only or primarily on the Internet.

Why do we want e-books? Print surrogates  Accessibility - 24/7 access for multiple users  Substitute for antiquarian texts  Space-saving  Do not deteriorate  No graffiti  Reduced processing costs Added value  Full-text searching  X-author searching  Reformatting, cut & paste, compilation  Textual mark-up  Group working  Quality control

What are the drawbacks Finding the e-books Learning how to use them Access to computers Tiring to read on screen Increased printing costs May reduce number of print copies in the library Illegal sites Do they encourage plagiarism?

E-books for the Social Sciences How many do we have in Oxford? Electronic Reference Sources  Quick sources of information Short sessions, average 5 mins Electronic Primary Texts  Print surrogates with search options Session length, 20 mins + Electronic Secondary Texts  Print surrogates with search options Session length, mins +

How do we find Oxford’s E-books? OxLIP (links to package) OLIS links Access within the University domain Athens password VPN

Electronic Reference Sources Oxford Reference On-Line Dictionary of National Biography Blackwell Reference On-Line International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences

Oxford Reference On-Line

Electronic Primary Texts Past Masters  Bentham, Engels, Malthus, Marx, Mill, Adam Smith Early English Books Online ECCO Women’s studies  Gerritsen Collection  British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries  North American Women's Letters and Diaries Making of the Modern World World Bank e-Library

Past Masters: search results for “Communist Manifesto”

World Bank E-Book Library

Making of the Modern World

Commercial Secondary Texts NetLibrary  Coming soon for the Social Sciences MyILibrary  Law and Social Sciences Taylor & Francis  Humanities and Education Oxford Scholarship Online  Political Science, Economics & Finance, Theology, Philosophy Blackwell Reference On-Line Science Direct (Elsevier)  Handbooks in Economics  Handbooks in Statistics

NetLibrary

MyILibrary

Oxford Scholarship On-Line

Blackwell Reference On-Line

Taylor & Francis

Free e-books Project Gutenberg Google project Intute  peer-reviewed The Internet  Not peer-reviewed  Basic scanned older editions  Not always legal

And finally Live demonstrations  Past Masters, MyILibrary, WorldBank, Taylor & Francis, Oxford Scholarship On-Line, MOMW, Requests Practice opportunities Questions