There are many different vendors and platforms that provide e-books. The library subscribes to many of them. You can learn about and compare the features of different platforms on this e-book vendor comparison chart. 

With Springer Link you can read books and book chapters online, or download the content and read it later.

Note: Chapters with the yellow lock icon are only available as previews. If they interest you, you can search for them in our other e-book databases. You can also deselect the preview-only option at the top left of the Springer screen.

HathiTrust is a partnership of academic and research institutions which share their digitized collections. It is a useful source when looking for research, books in the public domain, or for browsing through collections of subject specific works. You can also create your own collections, both private and public.

HathiTrust is available through Easy Search on the Library homepage, or by going to HathiTrust.org. For more information, see our guide on how to use HathiTrust.

With O'Reilly E-Books and Video, U of I affiliates have access to thousands of online books and videos that focus on business, technology, math, science, engineering, graphic design, and software development. All titles are available and accessible via a search in the U of I Library catalog.

You must create an account with your Illinois email address in order to gain full access. We have step-by-step instructions for how to do so below.

1. If you click on a full text link for an O'Reilly item from within the Library's catalog, you will see this screen:

2. The University of Illinois is not listed in the institution dropdown, so click on the “institution not listed” link underneath the dropdown.

3. The window will now prompt you to enter your academic institution email. You must enter your @illinois email address to access O'Reilly materials through the U of I library.

4.  After you click on the "Let's Go" button, you will receive a confirmation email from O'Reilly to your @illinois.edu address.

You can now access O'Reilly electronic learning resources!

With ProQuest Ebook Central you can:

• Go to the detail page for relevant book information including availability, the table of contents, and the bibliography.
• Read online or download books, as well as share links to the book or create citation.
• Open to the first page or select a chapter from the table of contents.
• Search for specific words within the book and within chapters.

Wiley Online Library is another major e-book provider. Like Springer, you can read e-books by downloading them as PDFs.

For reference e-books see the Library's Online Reference Collection. Below are resources which simultaneously search several reference sources, including encyclopedias, dictionaries, and more.