Distance Education

At first glance, it seems that electronic books would be a wonderful and convenient resource for distance ed students – if the book you want is available electronically. Here are some advantages and disadvantages of electronic books and a strategy to help you use them most effectively.

Advantages:

• No shipping – e-books, being electronic, are available immediately online.
• Searchable – even if the e-book reader software does not include a search function, you can still use your browser or .pdf reader software to search the text.
• Accessibility for disabilities – electronic book text can be run through screen-readers or changed to make it more readable.
• Portable – You can get your ebook pretty much anywhere, you don’t need a library to house it.

Disadvantages

• Only available online – Some of our ebooks can not be downloaded, so you have to be online to read them.
• It’s hard to read text on a screen – This may be more personal preference than anything else, but I find it harder to read big blocks of text on a computer monitor than I do on paper.
• Not very portable – You need a computer or some other device to read it and can’t just pull that book out of your bag when you have 15 minutes.

So, how can you, as a distance ed student, take best advantage of these things?

First, don’t look specifically for ebooks. Think less about the format of the book and more about the content that will be most helpful. Search the library catalog for books on your topic and take the best ones, whether they are ebooks or not.

Here are some other ideas

• Get familiar with how the ebook system you’re using works. Many ebooks, but not all, come as .pdf files you read using the Adobe Acrobat reader you are likely already familiar with.
• Learn to search the ebook. Tables of contents and indexes are useful, but one major advantage of ebooks is that you can use the computer to sift through them for just what you want rather than you skimming the pages directly. Take advantage of that.
• Use InfoHawk to find ebooks. We buy many collections of ebooks like Books 24/7, Cognet or netLibrary. All the individual ebook titles are listed in our library catalog, though. Use the Advanced Search and change the Format menu to “E-Books” to find only ebooks on your topic.

Let us know what you think. Do you prefer print or electronic books? What other advantages or disadvantages do you see?

Dan the Librarian

Students (and instructors) frequently call me for help finding a specific article they already know about. Often they mean, “How do I find this article online?” whther the article is online or not. Let me give you some stps to follow.

1. Try the Article Locator in the e-journals part of our webpage.

The Article Locator will only look for articles in online journals, so it won’t tell you if we have your article in print.

2. Request the article using Article Delivery

If we have the article you want in our print collection, we’ll scan it for you and deliver it electronically through the Article Deliver/InterLibrary Loan system. If the article you want is not in our collection, we will automatically try to get it for you from another library and deliver it through the system. Register with article delivery now to save time later.

Registering for Article Delivery (video)

Requesting Article Delivery (video)

3. If having the article delivered to you is not efficient enough, see if it is in a library near you.

Look up the name of the journal (not the specific article) in WorldCat.org and find the library nearest you that carries that journal. It’s always a good idea to call the library to make sure they really have what you need before you travel there.

4. You can always Ask a Librarian!

Distance Education students can contact Dan the Librarian through the Get Help page and any University of Iowa student can use out Ask a Librarian pages.

Have you had trouble finding the articles you need or found other strategies for getting what you need from a distance? Tell us about it in the comments.

Dan the Librarian

If you are like most distance education students, you chose a distance education program for the convenience. Driving to Iowa City to use the library is not a convenient option. In the next couple of paragraphs, I’ll outline some strategies for getting books for your academic research.

Which book?
First, use the Libraries online catalog to find books on your subject or to find your specific title.

Getting a book from the University of Iowa Libraries
When you find a book you want, use the Interlibrary Loan & Article Delivery Request Form to request it. (Don’t let the name scare you – we use the system for books, too.)

The first time you log in to the system, you’ll be asked to create an account – a pretty straightforward process. If you are a distance education student, remember to choose the Distance Education option whenever it is available. This short video explains how in more detail.

To request a book…

1. Log into the system.
2. Choose the book request form from the list on the left.
3. Fill out as much information as you can – the form indicates what basic information is required, but the more information might help us find your book faster.
4. Submit your request.
5. We’ll ship the books to you, usually by UPS. You are responsible for sending the books back to us. Use this chart to find out how long you can keep books.

Getting books we don’t own
We can even get books for you from other libraries – although that is not always the best option for distance ed students. When you request a book, we’ll first check our collection for it. If we don’t have it, we’ll automatically request it for you from another library. That’s right – you just request what you want and we’ll get it for you whether we own it or not.

Of course, it takes longer for us to request a book from another library, have them send it to Iowa City and then have us turn around and send it on to you.

Finding a Book in your area
How can a distance ed student get a book from another library, then? This is one of the few times I’ll recommend your local public library. They also provide Interlibrary loan services and might be able to save time by getting the book more locally. Use the WorldCat system to see if the book is available in a library near you.

How do you get the books you need for your research. Tell us about it in the comments.