desLibris / Canadian Electronic Library

June 2014


Celebrate Canada Day with desLibris*: a new e-Resource for libraries, providing high-quality current Canadian e-book content for just pennies per reader.    

 

desLibris puts a rich selection of Canadian e-books and public documents into immediate circulation, requiring  no expenditure of staff time for selection or circulation.


A simple link on your library's e-Resources page gives readers a fully-searchable portal to over 50,000 Canadian titles: today over 14,000 books from Canadian publishers and 36,000 documents from public policy and health research agencies. Hundreds of new titles are added monthly.  

 

*pronounced "day-libris! 
Contents
The Public Site
Special Features for Libraries
New titles every week!
Pricing for Individuals
Made in Canada
Local Colour
Open, persistent urls
Free trial
Have a look

desLibris is available to the public in preview form. Note these features on the public site:  

  • A bilingual (English-French) interface gives Canadian readers access to all content in the language of their choice.
  • The open, persistent URL behind every desLibris book allows for reliable third-party linking, sharing or tweeting.
  • Searches on desLibris are shareable, so readers may build reading lists for anyone, even those without fulltext access. 
  • The combined strength of MARC data and publisher ONIX gives books maximum discoverability.   

Click on the covers in this newsletter to see any of the titles shown. 

Features for libraries

While the preview site is open to the public, desLibris offers libraries the opportunity to integrate the material presented.

 

A membership gives libraries these extra benefits:

  • IP-authentication  There is no set-up time. As soon as you register your IP ranges, all users in your system will have fulltext access to every title in the collection(s) you choose. And proxy setup is EZ!
  • Instant integration Add 50,000 titles to your library collection with a simple link on your e-Resources page. 
  • MARC Records  Every title in desLibris is backed with a MARC record, so you can easily add all or selected titles to your online catalogue.   
  • Customized selection of records is simple Special libraries may configure MARC sets around their specialized subject criteria (such as "Law" or "Education in Ontario.")
  • Books online fulltext Users in Member libraries have online access to the fulltext of most copyright books in the collection*.
  • Documents PDF download All public documents are downloadable in DRM-free PDF from desLibris, so users may take copies away for further use.
  • Page-specific URLs available only to member library users These offer a major benefit in a teaching situation, where page and chapter references are important for assigments and readings.
  • Library dashboard Member libraries have access to their own account module, which provides reporting and collection management tools.   

*Some titles on the public site are not made available by publishers for online reading. In these cases, external links take readers to alternate sources. Or libraries may set a limit to exclude these titles from searches.   

New titles added weekly!

Subscribing libraries receive new Books and Documents on a regular basis as part of the service. In a given year, desLibris adds more than 4,000 Books and Public Documents to the online collection.

 

 

Individual Subscriptions

For a low annual ($400) fee, scholars and students of Canada may subscribe to desLibris for full password access to this rich library of Canadiana. To begin,

go to Register.

 

Ask a question or Join Our Mailing List!
Checking Out Canadians
Checking Out Canadians

BookNet Canada has just released a followup to "Canadians Reading Canadians: How Interested Are Canadians in Reading Canadian Content?" examining the use of Canadian content in libraries. Their findings chart a decline in library users reading Canadian authors and uncertainty among both users and librarians as to how to identify and where to find Canadian authors. Prizing Literature

desLibris will enhance the visibility and availability of Canadian content for your users.

See titles added since January 2014.
Made in Canada
Produced by Canadian Electronic Library, the desLibris platform is built by OnixEdit: a Quebec-based  developer specializing in Onix for publishers. It's fed by Biblioshare, Booknet Canada's catalogue utility. It references reviews and discovery tools in 49th Shelf, and it's fully bilngual.

 

Act locally
The Great Canadian Bucket List
desLibris supplies the local content and context that is often missing from library ebook collections.  To test, try a search for an item of local interest (bike paths in Toronto?) or Canadian relevance (robocalls? carbon tax? aboriginal education?) Turn on optional fulltext search for more depth.
Open, persistent links

Every title in desLibris is identified with a persistent url; a simple link which is unique to the title, which never changes, and which is always accessible (in preview form to a public viewer and in complete form to an authenticated viewer.) This allows everyone to cite books, and it allows libraries to place links in their catalogues which are universal. This means that desLibris MARC records, which contain these links, may be loaded to library catalogues without concern about dead-ends. In other words, when anyone clicks on the link, the book will always be visible, in preview form to external users and in full to library users.
Try it free
 
To start a free 30-day trial, simply go to www.deslibris.ca/register and sign in. During the trial period, all library users have full access to the content options chosen. At any time during the trial period, content options may be removed or added, and you may cancel without further obligation before any invoicing is issued.
Sample searches
Sincerely,

Bob Gibson
desLibris / Canadian Electronic Library