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The Gale eBooks collection consists of almost 600 non-fiction reference books across all subject areas.
Containing many encyclopedias, handbooks and critical analyses, Gale eBooks is an excellent source of information to gain a core overview and understanding of a topic.
This page provides information on accessing and using Gale eBooks - browsing, searching, printing, downloading, note-taking etc.
Good news: Gale eBook help is contextual, so you'll get help topics related to the screen you are on.
Not-so-good news: The Help link is tiny and waaaaay down the bottom of the screen.
Good news: Library staff are more than happy to help you get the most out of eBooks.
Click on a subject to display all the books in that collection, and click on the book jacket image to go to a specific title.
From the detailed information page, if you click on View eBook, a cover-to-cover view of the book as it appears in print will load (Book View).
Alternatively, you can view the Table of Contents or the Book Index. When you navigate from those options, the display is in HMTL (Text View).
On any page you can toggle between Book View and Text View.
The Gale eBooks search is time-saving as it searches the content of the whole eBook library at once, bringing together results from articles and chapters that appear in different books.
Use the default Basic Search option to get started. Results are displayed according to Relevance, however you can re-sort them, e.g. by Publication Date which will show newer documents first. Click on a result summary to view the whole document.
Too many results or not quite what you are after?
The topic finder is an interactive visual search tool to help you narrow down the search results so you get fewer but more accurate results. It can be viewed as tiles or as a wheel. The topic finder works by clustering other terms commonly used in the documents that contained your original search terms.
Click the tiles or turn the wheel to narrow the topic and watch your search results change. Take note of the different terms used - this might give you ideas for better or alternative search terms to use, e.g. when running a Google search for other information.
This is a screenshot of the toolbar when viewing a book section in HTML View.
Table of Contents – provides quick access via a drop down so you can browse other sections in the book
Book View – switches to the cover-to-cover version of the book
Cite – Generates a citation for the reference. Note that Harvard is not currently an available citation style, however it does provide all the elements needed to accurately cite the text.
Send to – Google Drive, OneDrive or email
Download – downloads the book section as PDF
Print – displays printing options
Get link – generates a persistent (permanent) link to the book section
Highlights and Notes - If you have made highlights or notes in your current session, these will display. See the box below for instructions on how to use this feature.
Select the required text. Click the Highlight tool to choose a colour and type in any Notes you’d like to add.
When you have finished working, go to the Highlights and Notes icon in the toolbar to view all the passages you’ve marked.
Highlights and notes can only be accessed during your current session, so make sure you download, print or send them before you close your browser. A citation for the relevant section is automatically included for you.