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E-Books

E-books are books that are available in a digital format. They can either be read on a personal computer, tablet or on a dedicated e-book reader. Increasingly, academic books are available as e-books.

TU Delft Library has more than 30,000 e-books in its collection. You can recognise an e-book from the online icon in Discover. On campus, the link Go to Full Text allows you to access the e-book directly.

You can search specifically for e-books by using the search: book AND online.

Advantages and disadvantages

E-books have certain advantages:

• Full-text searching within and across e-books
• Immediate online access from your desktop (on campus or with a VPN-client installed)
• Make and save notes which remain available with online e-books
• Create your own digital bookshelf with your favourite e-books
• One e-book reader can store many titles

... but there are also some disadvantages:

• There are many different e-book formats, and different suppliers support their own proprietary formats
• Digital Rights Management may restrict what can be done with an e-book. Sometimes it is difficult or impossible
  - to sell, share or give away an e-book
  - to copy or print (parts of) an e-book
• E-books depend on hardware and software and are more easily damaged than a printed book
• Many people dislike reading from a screen