WISER Social Studies EBooks for the Social Sciences

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WISER Social Studies E-Books for the
Social Sciences

• Kate Williams and Hilla Wait

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Structure of todays session

• To understand the value of e-books for teaching
  and research
• To understand their limitations
• Overview of e-books in in the Social Sciences
• Time to explore with assistance available

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What is an ebook?

•  e-book, n.
•  A hand-held electronic device on which the text
  of a book can be read. Also a book whose text is
  available in an electronic format for reading on
  such a device or on a computer screen (occas.) a
  book whose text is available only or primarily on
  the Internet.

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Why do we want e-books?

• Print surrogates
• Accessibility - 24/7 access for multiple users
• Substitute for antiquarian texts
• Space-saving
• Do not deteriorate
• No graffiti
• Reduced processing costs
• Added value
• Full-text searching
• X-author searching
• Reformatting, cut paste, compilation
• Textual mark-up
• Group working
• Quality control

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What are the drawbacks

• Finding the e-books
• Learning how to use them
• Access to computers
• Tiring to read on screen
• Increased printing costs
• May reduce number of print copies in the library
• Illegal sites
• Do they encourage plagiarism?

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E-books for the Social Sciences

• How many do we have in Oxford?
• Electronic Reference Sources
• Quick sources of information
• Short sessions, average 5 mins
• Electronic Primary Texts
• Print surrogates with search options
• Session length, 20 mins
• Electronic Secondary Texts
• Print surrogates with search options
• Session length, 10-30 mins

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How do we find Oxfords E-books?

• OxLIP (links to package)
• OLIS links
• Access within the University domain
• Athens password http//www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/athens/
• VPN

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Electronic Reference Sources

• Oxford Reference On-Line
• Dictionary of National Biography
• Blackwell Reference On-Line
• International Encyclopedia of the Social and
  Behavioural Sciences

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International Encyclopedia of the Social and
Behavioural Sciences
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Oxford Reference On-Line
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Electronic Primary Texts

• Past Masters
• Bentham, Engels, Malthus, Marx, Mill, Adam Smith
• Early English Books Online
• ECCO
• Womens studies
• Gerritsen Collection
• British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries
• North American Women's Letters and Diaries
• Making of the Modern World
• World Bank e-Library

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Past Masters search results for Communist
Manifesto
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World Bank E-Book Library
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Making of the Modern World
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Commercial Secondary Texts

• NetLibrary
• Coming soon for the Social Sciences
• MyILibrary
• Law and Social Sciences
• Taylor Francis
• Humanities and Education
• Oxford Scholarship Online
• Political Science, Economics Finance, Theology,
  Philosophy
• Blackwell Reference On-Line
• Science Direct (Elsevier)
• Handbooks in Economics
• Handbooks in Statistics

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NetLibrary
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MyILibrary
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Oxford Scholarship On-Line
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Blackwell Reference On-Line
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Taylor Francis
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Free e-books

• Project Gutenberg
• Google project
• Intute
• peer-reviewed
• The Internet
• Not peer-reviewed
• Basic scanned older editions
• Not always legal

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And finally

• Live demonstrations
• Past Masters, MyILibrary, WorldBank, Taylor
  Francis, Oxford Scholarship On-Line, MOMW,
• Requests
• Practice opportunities
• Questions