Electronic Books
Linking to Electronic Books in BlackBoard Vista
In this portion of the website you will be shown how to link to electronic Books using Vista's built-in HTML editor.
The Meriam Library provides access to six major eBooks collections : (1) netLibrary (2) ACLS Humanities E-Book (3) Safari Books Online (4) Gale Virtual Reference Library (5) Oxford Reference Online and (6) CQ Political Reference Suite, as well as individual titles selected by faculty and the library.
Generally we recommend that you first find the books that you want in one of the collections, and then obtain their links in the Meriam library catalog. The links in the catalog offer the advantage of already having the Proxy server address appended to them.*
For most of the databases you can also capture the links on their books web pages. The exception is NetLibrary, which doesn't provide links on its pages. You must get them from the library catalog. Below are instructions on how to capture links in the databases themselves, which in some cases also offer links to individual pages in their books!
(1) NetLibrary: Note If you are off campus and using a commercial Internet service provider (e.g., AOL, Earthlink) you and your students may be required to setup an account with netLibrary. To set up an account, go to the netLibrary website at http://mantis.csuchico.edu/login?url=http://www.netlibrary.com/library_home_page.asp, and click on the "Create a Free Account" link at the top right corner of the page. Follow their instructions on how to set-up the account.
(2) ACLS Humanities E-Book (formerly History E-Books)
Besides the links provided on the record for a book in library catalog, you can also find links under "save citation" or "table of contents" on the ACLS website.
(3) Links in Safari Books Online are on the bottom of their books' pages.
(4) Gale Reference Virtual Reference Library:
After locating a book on the Gale website that you want to use, locate the record for that book in the library catalog. Next right click with your mouse (if you are using a PC) on the link to this item which is shown on the library record below at "link to online resource below" (if you are using a single click Mac Mouse do a control-click). Select "copy shortcut" from the menu choices. Paste this link where you want to use it.
(5) Oxford Reference Online
Go to the database and find the book that you want, and copy the URL from the address bar of your browser:
Add the proxy address http://mantis.csuchico.edu/login?url= to the front of this link.
Detailed instructions for linking to Oxford are available on their website.
6) CQ Political Reference Suite
Linking to electronic books using Vista's built-in HTML editor.
Follow these steps:
Find the book that you want in one of the eBook databases
Find links in the library catalog in the Full Records for each book.
Note: you can skip step one and search for eBooks in the library catalog using "online book" as one of the "collection" limiting fields at the bottom of the page, or use "electronic resource" as one of the keyword entries in your search.
Add your link(s) to a page
- In the "Build View" of Vista select the "Course Content" tool from the left menu.
- Click on "add file" and then select "create file" file from the drop down list.
- Turn on the "HTML Creator" button.
- Give your link a title, and add a description in the content window if you wish.
- Click on the "insert link" icon which looks like a chain link, on the right side of the second row of icons.
- Paste the link from step 2 above into the box that says: "URL: Enter link to file, including the protocol (such as http:)"
- Enter a description of the link and then hit the "Save" button when you are done.
A link to the page (file) that you just made will then appear in the content window.