Ebook Central offers access to selected law ebooks which IALS Library has purchased, via ProQuest, from a variety of publishers.
Access
Onsite access is available to academic members of IALS Library.
Remote access is available to IALS and SAS staff, fellows and students; University of London law staff and postgraduate students; and IALS Library academic members.
Certain features, such as downloading, are only available once a personal account has been created within the IALS account. To make an account, click on ‘Sign In’ in the top right corner of the Ebook Central homepage, and then ‘Create Account’.
Once you have created an account you can download, highlight, annotate, change display settings, and save books to your personal bookshelf.
Content
The books purchased by IALS Library are displayed by default: the option ‘Owned and subscribed to by my library’ should be ticked. If you need to navigate back to IALS Library's purchased books, select Browse Subjects, then Law, then tick ‘Owned and subscribed to by my library’ (under ‘Book Status’).
The books cover general legal topics; foreign law, international law, UK law and EU law; and law-related subjects. A variety of publishers is represented, including Cambridge University Press, Bloomsbury Publishing, Taylor and Francis, Springer, Wolters Kluwer and Juta.
Each book is listed on the IALS Library Catalogue as well as being accessible from the EBook Central platform.
Searching and browsing
A basic search facility is available from the IALS landing page.
There is also an advanced search facility. This allows users to specify publication date range, format (PDF or EPUB), and other criteria. To search by editor, use the Author field.
After selecting a book, you can search within that book only.
The list of books can be sorted by title, date, publisher, and other criteria. It can be filtered by year of publication, subject, language, and/or author.
Reading and downloading
Content can be read online in either EPUB or PDF format, depending on the individual ebook. There is also a Text Only Mode available through the account settings menu.
Chapters or sections of ebooks can be downloaded in PDF format. The number of pages that can be downloaded or copied varies but will be specified from the ebook details page. Some ebooks can be downloaded in PDF format in full for a limited number of days (download periods range from 1-21 days).
Accessibility
View Ebook Central accessibility information
The Ebook Central platform complies with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, and provides the majority of its content in accessible formats.
Ebook Central has a Text Only Mode which can be enabled for use with screen readers through the account settings menu. This needs to be enabled in order to use a screen reader with ebooks in PDF format. Ebooks in EPUB format can be used with screen readers without enabling Text Only Mode. View further information about Ebook Central Text Only Mode.
Ebook Central also has an option to enable OpenDyslexic typeface through the account settings menu. If the Text Only Mode is also enabled, the OpenDyslexic typeface will be applied to ebook text. View further information about Ebook Central OpenDyslexic Typeface.