eBooks Part IV: Safari Tech Books Online

The Library’s collection of technology books from Safari Books Online provides access to over 12,400 software, digital media and other technology books, as well as videos. View the Safari collection here and follow the steps below as we walk you through the process of finding and viewing a Safari eBook.

Find an eBook

If you know the title of the book you want to search for or the general category it might fall into, start with the search bar at the top of the home page. Then you can narrow your results by category, publication year, authors, and publishers if need be. You can also choose to view all the books in the collection if you want to see everything Safari has to offer, or browse by the categories on the left of the page: from Web Design to Game Programming, Animation to Photo & Graphic Manipulation, Civil Engineering to Trigonometry and so much more.

Having found a book, the reading part is easy! Select the title or cover image and you’ll be taken to a page with tabs for the “Table of Contents” or “Search This Book” that let you find specific information in the text. Otherwise, you can select the blue “Start Reading” button to view books in Safari’s online reader and go through your selected eBook from the beginning.

The online reader opens your eBook in a separate window to the right of the Table of Contents. You can scroll down through the pages or click the left and right arrow buttons to turn each page as well. The reader’s toolbar at the top of the window also allows for zooming in and out, changing the page size, or switching to an html view of the book (only for some titles), which allows you to highlight and copy/paste selections of text. The reader’s toolbar also has two buttons in the upper left-hand corner for e-mailing a link to the book or printing individual pages (only one at a time).

While online, only two users can read the same book at the same time, but a single user can have up to nine books open at once. Reading sessions only time out if there’s been over 20 minutes of inactivity, so you can take your time and read at your leisure as long as you’re connected to the Internet.

Accessing the eBook

What if you don’t have an Internet connection? Unfortunately, the only way to access Safari books offline is to print individual pages. Safari does not allow eBook downloading or offline viewing for library users—only for those with personal Safari accounts or premium subscriptions. But accessing eBooks through the library means you don’t have to pay for an individual subscription (no monthly fees!), so it’s ultimately worth the tradeoff. And you’ll still be able to take advantage of the thousands of eBooks in our collection from home through our website (www.csn.edu/library). Click the “Safari Tech Books Online” link on our database page and log in using your NSHE ID number and password. Just make sure your computer has one of the following browsers: Internet Explorer Version 7 or 8, Firefox Version 3.x or newer, Safari Version 3 or newer, Chrome Version 7 or newer. Books can be viewed on Windows XP, Vista, or 7, and Mac computers running Tiger, Leopard, or Snow Leopard. Flash Version 9 or above is also required.

For more information on Safari eBooks, you can visit Safari’s help page here.

You can also contact any CSN reference librarian by phone or in person for troubleshooting tips and friendly advice to make the most of your eBook experience.