Top tips for librarians
This page is designed to provide key information to help librarians at subscribing institutions set up and manage access to e-books for FE. If you have a question that is not answered below please contact our help desk at content.feandskills@jisc.ac.uk and we will be happy to assist you.
Access
Subscriptions
e-books for FE is available and free via subscription to UK further education providers who are members of Jisc Collections. For any subscription enquiries please contact the Jisc Collections help desk at: help.digitalresources@jisc.ac.uk.
Authentication
We provide access via the UK Access Management Federation (UKAMF) using identity providers (IDPs) such as Shibboleth or OpenAthens; as well as IP authentication. You can have one or both of these methods enabled. If you want to check the authentication options enabled for your institution for e-books for FE, or make any changes to them, please contact ProQuest.
WAYFless URLs
We provide WAYFless URLs for e-books for FE.
You can use the WAYFless URL generator (WUGEN) tool to generate one for your institution.
- Go to the WAYFless URL generator (WUGEN) tool
- Select your institution as the “Identity Provider”
- Select “EBL – Ebook Library” as the Service Provider
- Accept the default target URL of “https://sp.eblib.com/shibboleth”
- A WAYFless URL will be displayed for your institution for you to copy or email to yourself.
Proxy servers
If you access e-books for FE using IP authentication, and you have a proxy server at your institution which you wish to be able to use for accessing the resource, please let our help desk know your proxy servers’ IP address, if it is not included in the range you have provided for your institution.
You may also need to add the following entries to your proxy server forward table:
- https://ebookcentral.proquest.com
If you use EZProxy then you can use the EZProxy stanza for e-books for FE which is available on the OCLC support pages under ‘Ebook Central (2017-09-08)’.
Athens resource list
e-books for FE is available via UK access management federation authentication (Shibboleth and OpenAthens) and it is not an OpenAthens protected resource. To add it to your OpenAthens resource list it will need to be added as an “additional resource” by your institutions OpenAthens Administrator.
If you would like instructions on how to do this please contact the OpenAthens service desk.
Maintenance
Maintenance to the platform happens from time to time, especially in the summer when the e-books collections are reviewed. If you find you have any access or platform issues contact ProQuest
Reports
MARC records
Quality-checked MARC21 cataloguing records are freely available from the ProQuest LibCentral website; from here you can access your usage statistics as well as gaining access to the latest MARC records.
For full details see our MARC records guide.
Usage statistics
A usage statistics portal is available for e-books for FE. For see this guide to find how to log in. The portal is available to librarians at subscribing institutions and you can pull reports for allocated date ranges. Please note the figures update every few weeks and so are not always up to the date of report generation.
ProQuest provides usage statistics reports in compliance with COUNTER Code of Practice for Books and Reference Works. COUNTER reports are available for download from the Ebook Central ® admin portal for each Ebook Central ® member.
ProQuest’s 3 Tips to Reclaim Space & Offer More Value to Users
Support your space reclamation and weeding needs with a free assessment of your print and electronic holdings. We’ll highlight opportunities to transform your collections and gain resources. For your Libraries check out this PDF guide
Promotion
Keeping up to date and connect
There is an e-books for FE JiscMail which is open to anyone who would like to keep up to date with the latest news, developments and events for the e-books for FE service. We encourage librarians and teaching practitioners to share best practice and their own tips and tricks regarding the implementation and use of the e-books for FE service, on this JiscMail group.
Guidance videos to share
ProQuest has made videos about the Ebook Central ® platform that e-books for FE is on via YouTube. This covers an overview of the platform and how to search, an overview of the e-book reader, guidance on downloading and a quick look at how to use the bookshelf.
ProQuest e-books for FE support site
ProQuest have created an e-books for FE support site which includes user guides, promotional materials, advice for administrators, and Webex recordings of online training sessions.
e-books for FE Logo
We have made the e-books for FE logo available for you to use within your own resources, should you require. The logo is in the .png format. Right-click the logo and select “Save Link As” or “Save Image As” to download:
Promotional brochures
ProQuest has created promotional brochures around the Ebook Central ® platform for e-books for FE in PDF format for you to use: