On most ebrary sites, ebrary now offers the following two download options for offline access to ebrary content:
- Create an image PDF of a specific chapter or page range
Learn more: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=655
- Same page limits as for printing.
- Accessible on most computers and devices, including the Kindle.
- Additional (free) software is typically not needed.
- Files do not expire.
- Unfortunately the image quality is somewhat reduced in these PDFs.
- Download an entire document as an e-book in Adobe Digital Editions
Learn more: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=687
- Patrons first need to install Adobe Digital Editions (free online).
- Accessible on most computers and devices, but not the Kindle.
- Up to 10 documents at a time per patron.
- By default, full-document downloading is only available for multi-user documents (not single-user-only documents), but admins can override this setting.
- Multi-user documents can be full-document downloaded for 14 days*.
- If allowed, single-user-only documents can be full-document downloaded for 7 days*.
- Some publishers prohibit full-document downloading of their documents. See here for a list: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=868
* These check-out times are currently not configurable.
Note: both types of downloading are triggers for purchase in Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA).
Check out more of our Knowledge Base articles under the “DOWNLOAD!” category.
You can create an image PDF of a specific chapter or page range for any ebrary document (up to the same number of pages you can print on your ebrary site).
You can then read the image PDF file offline using any standard PDF viewer, such as Adobe Reader, which most users already have. You can also transfer the file to a mobile decide or e-reader, including the Amazon Kindle. You cannot search text or make annotations in an image PDF. Image PDF files won’t time-out or expire.
To create an image PDF of a specific chapter :
- Click on Download button in ebrary search-results list or QuickView window. You may be prompted to sign in to your ebrary bookshelf account.
- Select the option to create an image PDF of a chapter, then choose the name of the chapter from the drop-down menu.
- Click OK. (Note, if the chapter is longer than the number of pages allowed to be printed on your site, you will get an error message.)
To create an image PDF of a specific page range:
- Click on the Download button in the search results list or QuickView window. You may be prompted to sign in to your ebrary bookshelf account.
- Select the option to create an image PDF of a specific page range, then enter the starting and ending ebook page numbers in the boxes (note, these are the sequentially numbered pages used for e-books, not the page numbers printed on the page.)
- Click OK. (Note, if the page range is longer than the number of pages allowed to be printed on your site, you will get an error message.)
ebrary’s alternative download option is to:
Download an entire document as an e-book in Adobe Digital Editions
Learn more: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=687
Overview of ebrary’s download options: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=86
To download an entire ebrary document thereby creating an e-book for temporary access you need Adobe Digital Editions, a free software program. (Not available for Linux, and not supported on Kindle.)
You will be able to read and annotate the e-book offline, and transfer it to your supported devices. Access periods are 7 days (single-user-only documents, if the library admins have chosen to allow this) or 14 days (multi-user documents), but you can return it early. You can have up to 10 ebrary e-books at a time.
Some ebrary documents may not be available for this type of download.
If it’s your first time downloading a document via Adobe Digital Editions, we recommend setting up Adobe Digital Editions before you start downloading from ebrary. Go here if it’s your first time: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=841
Or, you can do all the steps together, but this might be a bit more confusing:
- Go to your ebrary site
- If you aren’t already, sign in to your ebrary bookshelf account. (That is, click the Sign In button at the top right and sign in as usual.)
- Find the book you want to download
- Click the Download button in the ebrary search-results list or from within QuickView
- Select the option to download the entire document
- Click OK
- A dialog box shows number of days e-book will be readable
- Click Download
- If you haven’t already, you’ll be prompted to install Adobe Digital Editions
- Once Adobe Digital Editions is installed, choose either Open with Adobe Digital Editions or Save file to open later
- You’ll be prompted to sign in to your Adobe account. If you don’t already have one, click the button to create one
- Click OK
That’s it!
ebrary’s alternative download option is to :
Download a specific chapter or page range as an image PDF
Learn more: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=655
Overview of ebrary’s download options: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=86
If it’s your first time downloading a document via Adobe Digital Editions, we recommend setting up your Adobe Digital Editions account before you attempt to do a full document download. Here are the steps to install Adobe Digital Editions (free online) and to create an Adobe account. Each takes a minute or two…
Install Adobe Digital Editions:
- Go to http://www.adobe.com/products/digitaleditions
- Scroll down to the large brown “Install” button, click it
- A new “Install” button appears, click it
- Click “Yes” to continue
- Click “Next” to install selected components
- Confirm the install location, then click “Next”
- Installation begins… this may take a moment
- Once complete, click “Close” to launch Adobe Digital Editions
Create an Adobe account:
- Go to https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/membership
- Click “Create an account”
- Fill in at least the starred fields…
- Click “OK”
That’s it. You’re now ready to download ebrary documents as e-books as follows:
- Go to your ebrary site,
- Sign in to your personal ebrary account,
- Find the document you want to download
- Click the “Download” button and follow the prompts.
An ebrary document downloaded as an e-book in Adobe Digital Editions or on your iOS device is only available to you on a temporary basis.
Multi-user document = 14 days
If your ebrary site has multi-user access to an ebrary document, your downloaded e-book of that document will be accessible for 14 days. Note, all ebrary documents in subscription collections on your site are multi-user.
Single-user-only document = 7 days (if at all)
If your ebrary site has single-user-only access to an ebrary doucment, you might not be able to download it as an e-book (it depends on your administrator’s settings). If you can download it as an e-book, it will be accessible for 7 days. While you have it downloaded as an e-book, other users on your ebrary site cannot access the document – not even for online viewing – so consider returning it as soon as you’re done with it.
After the designated access time (14 or 7 days), the .pdf file will remain on your computer or device, but it will become unreadable (think Mission Impossible’s self destruct timer ticking away). Once it times out, you might want to delete the (unreadable) file to avoid confusion.
Returning a downloaded e-book
You don’t need to return an ebrary downloaded e-book. But since you can only have ten ebrary documents downloaded as e-books at a time, you might want to return an e-book early so you can download others. And returning a single-user-only downloaded e-book will make it once again available to others on your ebrary site. Early returns of downloaded e-books are done through Adobe Digital Editions, or an app (such as BlueFire) on your device. Returns may take up to an hour to be recognized on your ebrary site.
Note, creating an image PDF of a chapter or page range gives permanent access.
You can download an ebrary document directly from an iPad using just a browser, but you’ll need an app such as BlueFire to view the downloaded e-book, and you’ll need to have done the first two steps before downloading.
First, create an Adobe ID (this can be done from a separate computer):
- Go to https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/membership
- Click “Create an account”
- Fill in at least the starred fields…
- Click “OK”
Second, install BlueFire on the iPad
- Go to the App Store on your iPad
- Search for “BlueFire Reader“
- Download it to your iPad
Third, download an ebrary document via browser access to ebrary on an iPad:
- Go to your usual ebrary site
- Sign in to your ebrary bookshelf account
- Search for the document you want to download
- Click on its cover or title to open it in QuickView
- Click on the green “Download” button
- Select the option to download the entire book
- Follow the prompts, including signing in to your Adobe ID
Your downloaded e-book will then be available in your iPad’s BlueFire folder, ready for offline reading, annotating, etc using the BlueFire app.
Once you’ve downloaded an ebrary document as an e-book via Adobe Digital Editions, you can transfer it to an iOS device using iTunes as follows:
- Download to your iOS device a reading app (such as BlueFire) from the App Store
- Connect your iOS device to your computer
- Open iTunes, then:
1) Sync your iOS device
2) Click on the iPhone (or other) icon in the left pane
3) Click on the Apps tab and scroll down to select File Sharing
4) Click on Add
5) Go to your My Digital Editions folder
6) Select the downloaded e-book you’d like to transfer
- be sure to select the .pdf file, not the .acsm file
7) Re-sync your iOS device
You should now be able to read the downloaded e-book on your iOS device. You may need to authorize the device with your Adobe ID.
It depends…
- If the document is multi-user, it does not block other users’ access to it. Other users on the ebrary site will still be able to read the document online and even download it.
- But if the document is single-user-only, it does block other users’ access to it. For the duration of the download period (7 days, unless it is returned early) users on the ebrary site will not be able to access the document – not even for online viewing.
Because of this, the default setting is for full-document downloading to be disallowed for single-user-only documents (unless the ebrary site has multiple copies of the same single-user-only document, in which case only the last one is blocked from being full-document downloaded). The admin of the ebrary site can override this default setting.
All documents that are available on your site in subscription collections (e.g., Academic Complete) are multi-user. Perpetual access (i.e., purchased) titles can be either single-user or multi-user.
One way to tell whether a document is single-user or multi-user is to open it in QuickView and look to see if there is a “Release this title” button. If the button is there, it is single-user-only. If there no button, it is multi-user.
Note that the download option of creating an image PDF of a chapter or page range does not affect other user’s access to the document.
When you request to download an entire document (via Adobe Digital Editions), ebrary checks whether the document is allowed to be full-document downloaded. If it is not, you are informed at that point.
There are typically two reasons a document might be disallowed for full-document download:
- The document is single-user-only (and your ebrary site has the default setting that single-user-only documents are disallowed for full-document download).
Options: Your librarian might consider buying additional single-user-only copies of the document, converting it to multi-user (if available), or changing the default to allow full-document downloading of single-user-only documents.
- The document is provided by a publisher that does not allow full-document downloading. See the following link for a complete list:
http://support.ebrary.com/english/1089
Note that there are currently limitations on titles that are made available from several publishers (same title). There are very few of those, however those titles are not downloadable yet.
For Patron Driven Acquisition (PDA) users, there’s an additional reason a document might be disallowed for full-document download: When you open a PDA title that has not yet been triggered for purchase, the title is available as multi-user as all un-triggered PDA titles are. Successful download of a document, however, immediately triggers it for purchase. If the purchase would be as a single-user-only title, and single-user-only titles are disallowed for full-document download on your site, then it cannot be downloaded – even though it doesn’t appear to be a single-user-only document when you are viewing it.
Please click here for the Adobe Digital Editions help page on finding downloaded files.
Adobe Digital Editions is a free software program that is required to download entire e-books from ebrary. It handles the digital rights management (DRM) for the downloaded e-book; it monitors the download-time-period and causes the downloaded e-book to become unreadable after the indicated time period.
Adobe Digital Editions also offers user tools for working with your downloaded e-book:
- Transfer e-books to your mobile devices (but not a Kindle)
- Organize and navigate your library of e-books
- Return an e-book early
- Search text within an e-book
- Annotate and highlight an e-book (won’t be synced with ebrary bookshelf)
- Create bookmarks into an e-book
- Print up to 10% of an ebook
To learn how to use each of these features, visit Adobe Digital Editions’ help page.
To install Adobe Digital Editions, please select from the following:
Windows 7, Vista, XP
Mac OS X
If you experience problems, please click here for the Adobe Digital Editions help page.
You need an Adobe ID to:
- Download e-books from ebrary
- Use ebrary’s Mobile App
To create an Adobe account:
- Go to https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/membership
- Click “Create an account”
- Fill in at least the starred fields…
- Click “OK”
With Adobe Digital Editions, you can use your downloaded e-book in a number of ways:
- Check out and return downloaded documents
- Organize your library of downloaded documents
- Transfer downloaded documents to other devices including your iPhone, iPad, Kobo, Nook, Sony Reader, or others (but not a Kindle)
- Navigate your library of downloaded documents
- Search text within a downloaded document
- Annotate and highlight a downloaded document (but these won’t be synced with ebrary’s online bookshelf)
- Create bookmarks into a downloaded document
- Print a downloaded document
- Much more
First, download the e-book to your computer.
Then, follow these instructions:
- Connect your supported device to your computer.
- Launch Adobe Digital Editions. You may be prompted to create an Adobe ID.
- Adobe Digital Editions automatically detects your device and may offer to authorize the device with your Adobe ID.
- The device now appears as a new bookshelf in the library. Drag and drop the downloaded title(s) you wish to transfer.
Ebrary documents downloaded with Adobe Digital Editions automatically expire at the end of the loan period and are rendered unusable at that time.
To return an e-book early:
- In Adobe Digital Editions, click on the arrow icon on the title you wish to return early.
- Select Return Borrowed Item.
- Click OK.
- You may also wish to Delete Item by clicking on the same arrow.
There are a number of reasons you may not be able to download an e-book from your library. It may be that:
- You have reached the maximum number of entire-document downloads allowed per patron (10). In order to check out another e-book, you would first need to return one
- Your ebrary site doesn’t allow downloading
- Your ebrary site has a limited number of copies of the e-book, and has therefore restricted it from being downloaded
- All available copies are in use by other patrons (either online use or have been downloaded)
- The book you are trying to download may be from one of the publishers that restrict their titles from being downloaded. For a complete list of these publishers, see: http://support.ebrary.com/english/1089
You can download a maximum of 10 complete documents at a time.
When you return a downloaded document, it may take up to 10 minutes for the return to be processed before you may download another one.
The following list of publishers do NOT allow full-document downloading of any of their documents. If a document is published by one of these publishers, you won’t be able to full-document download it. (This list is current as of 2/2012)
- Byron Hoyt
- Cambridge University Press
- Duke University Press
- Dun & Bradstreet
- ExecuGo
- Global ePress
- Informa Healthcare
- Irwin Law
- New York University Press
- Now Publishers
- ProQuest (specifically Business Dissertations & Theses)
- University of Minnesota Press
- University of North Carolina Press
- University of Chicago Press
- Princeton University Press
Yes, on most ebrary sites we now offer two different download options for offline access to ebrary content:
For more, see our OVERVIEW page about ebrary’s download options: http://support.ebrary.com/?p=86