Health Sciences E-Book FAQs

Health Sciences E-books FAQ

Q. Does HSL have e-books?

A. The Health Sciences Library provides thousands of health sciences e-books to Columbia University faculty, staff and students.

Q. How do I find HSL e-books?

A. You can search for e-books using CLIO, the Columbia libraries online catalog.

To search CLIO for e-books do either of the following:

1. In Basic Search enter a keyword or title search and apply a limit “all electronic resources." In addition to e-books, this search will show e-journals, databases, etc. To avoid formats other than e-books, use Advanced Search instead (see instructions immediately below).

2. In Advanced Search enter keyword(s) and specify any field in which the keyword(s) are to be located (e.g. title, subject). Scroll down and choose format “books” and medium “electronic resources”.

Q.  I heard about Google’s efforts to digitize library books. How can I find books digitized at Columbia?

A. There is no way to directly search CLIO for books scanned through the Google Books project or other digitization projects. If Google has scanned a book in our catalog, you will see an image of the book cover, with an upturned bottom right corner, in the search results. 

Q. Can I make notes on an e-book?

Many e-books allow you to make notes.  You will need to create an account and log in to make notes. Since each e-book platform is different, you may have to consult the Help pages to determine what you can do and how to do it. 

Q. Can I search the contents of an e-book?

Most e-books have a search box where you can enter search terms. You can also use the table of contents to skip to a particular section of a book, just as with a print book.
Please note: Search functionality of e-book platforms is typically less sophisticated than that of article databases. In many cases you just need to put spaces between search terms. Use Help pages for the e-book platform you are using for help on search techniques.

Q. Can I search multiple e-books at one time?

A. Most e-book platforms have this capability. You can search across all books on the same vendor platform. It works best if you seek not to read a book but to find some particular information in any book. Then the book collection becomes a reference tool. One of the platforms that may serve as an efficient reference tool is Stat!Ref.

If you want to find all available e-books on your topic it is better to search CLIO, which has records of all of Columbia’s resources. If you use the search tools provided by a specific platform, you will only find e-books hosted on that platform.

Q. What is a platform?

Each e-book provider uses custom software to display, search, annotate, and provide other functions for their e-books. This software is the platform.

Some publishers host e-books on their own platforms. Other platforms--called “aggregators”--collect e-books from multiple publishers.

Q. What platforms does HSL use?

A. Some of the platforms are exclusively for e-books in Health Sciences (see links to them on the Health Sciences Library's homepage at http://library.cumc.columbia.edu under E-Resources>Full Text E-Books):

  • Stat!Ref
  • R2Library
  • Books@Ovid

Some of the platforms have mixed subject contents, e.g.:

  • Ebrary
  • SpringerLink
  • ScienceDirect

Q. What if I’m denied access to an e-book?

A. You may be denied access because of a variety of reasons, including license, authentication and technical problems.

But most often you are denied access because your attempt to view an e-book has exceeded the number of users allowed to use the book at one time. 

Some e-books allow for an unlimited number of users to access them at the same time, while other e-books might allow only one or a few users at the same time, referred to as a number of “seats”, or a number of “licenses”.  If all of the seats for an e-book are in use, you will get a message such as “The title you requested has reached its user limit for this subscription. Please try again later”. This is sometimes referred to as a “turnaway” message. Much like when all copies of a book are checked out at the library, all copies of this title are in use, so you will have to wait.

Should this happen, keep trying to access the book; once a previous user logs off, you may be able to get access.

You can help other e-book users by logging off the platform before closing your browser or going to another site. This will free the book you were reading more quickly, so that another user may read it.

Q. What if I still have questions about e-books or encounter problems when using them?

Please contact a librarian for assistance. You can find a librarian at the Reference Desk of the Library or contact us by e-mail at hs-library@columbia.edu or phone at 212-305-3692.