eBooks on EBSCOhost

After playing researching eBooks on EBSCOhost, I had to take a deep breath, step away from my computer, and indulge in a cup of hot cocoa....  This was a most frustrating experience!  In the first place, I am not a great fan of ebooks.  I do not own a Kindle or a Nook.  But I was willing to give eBooks a try, because I know our library does not own all the books in the world, and it's a trustworthy source of information.  However, I found the experience to be cumbersome and as stated previously, frustrating.

My first search was for a recipe for a corn soup I ate in Guatemala.  I searched for Cookery Guatemala, but had no results.  So I tried Cookery Central America, and got two titles:  Cooking the Central American Way appeared to be the best choice.  Although the recipe I am searching for is not included, the book was interesting.  Photos of the prepared food made my mouth water!  The Table of Contents was listed at the side of the page, so I could scroll down and click on any recipe I wanted to read.

Then I searched for Quilting:  of the various titles listed, I looked at Idiot's Guide to Quilting.  I couldn't get the Table of Contents to appear as it did for the cookbook, but when I looked at the full text, I went to the Contents, saw what chapter I wanted to read, and typed in the page number at the bottom and clicked Go....    

Moving on to the next part of the assignment, I searched for Constitution and United States, and Constitution Amendments.  The resulting titles were definitely more scholarly and detailed than your average public library collection (especially in the Children's Department where I work)!  The easiest was probably Idiot's Guide to the Presidents, but that really only deals superficially with the Constitution.  I also looked at Companion to the United States Constitution and It's Amendments (3rd edition) by John R. Vile, 2001.  It contains background information about events leading to the writing of the Constitution, as well as court cases dealing with various amendments.  Working on the assumption that "more is better," I perused another title, Our Elusive Constitution, by Daniel N. Hoffman (1997). 

This is when I began to get frustrated....  I wanted to specifically look up the 14th Amendment in the book.  I found the index, searched to find the 14th amendment listed, and saw there were about a dozen pages listed.  I searched several of those pages, before I gave up, opened a new window on my computer, and googled it!  But I figured there must be an easier way to find specific information, so I went back to my ebook and studied the screen.  Eureka!  I found the "search within" button under Tool on the right side!

So then I figured I should investigate some of the other buttons there on the right....  I created an account so I could have a folder.  I want back to my previous searches (quilting and cookery) to find information I wanted to save.  I thought I could put a recipe in the folder, but it only puts the entire book in the folder.  Then I tried to email pages from the Quilt book to myself, but I got an error message, and was told I had to sign in again,  But when I tried to sign in, it wouldn't accept my name or password!  So I exited out and started over, only to find that the quilt book was in use. 

I decided to print a recipe, but was told I exceeded the print limit (must be because of copyright?).  Then I couldn't access the cookbook either, because it said it was in use!

That's when I knew I needed to step back and indulge in some chocolate!

Oh yes, I did do the third part of this exercise.  By searching for Nebraska or Oklahoma in the PB Publisher field, results are limited to books published by presses that contain those words (University or Nebraska or University of Oklahoma Press).  There were some interesting titles listed.  I read the introduction to a book about baseball and the military during World War II, and also looked at a book about an Indian Boarding School in Rapid City.

There is no doubt that there is a lot of information available on eBooks on EBSCOhost, but it was difficult to get to.  I am not giving up, but I will need to work with this more before I feel comfortable suggesting it to patrons.