When the library purchases e-books, they come with a certain number of licences. These range from ‘unlimited’ – meaning an unlimited number of users can read the e-book at one time – to ‘single-user’ – meaning only one person can read the e-book at any one time.
If you happen to want to read an e-book with a limited number of licences, you may occasionally find that you are unable to access it straight away. In such cases, we usually recommend that you wait 15-20 minutes and try again.
When you are able to access the e-book, you can help yourself and your fellow students by downloading any key pages from the book for offline reading. This will allow you to continue reading while opening up online access to someone else. Most e-books allow you to download at least 10% of the pages for offline reading.
If you encounter regular difficulty accessing an e-book, feel free to contact your subject librarian as they may be able to purchase additional licences.
